There is plenty of car parking outside the store most of the time. There are no other sports shops on that side of the shopping area of Boston. The shop gives you quite a lot of floor space and room for people to move around and look at the goods.
The rent is quite expensive, though, and will cost £625 a week. Because the shop is so big, it will need a lot of lighting and heating, and the business rates are likely to be high because of the town centre location.
There is no car parking on Wednesdays and Saturdays because the Market Place become a market. The market stalls take up all the parking room. This means no parking on what could be the two busiest days of the week. The pavement outside the shop gets very busy on market days and this might mean that people will walk past the shop rather than stop to look in the window or come in.
Above is a street map of Boston showing the site. Below is an arial photograph
Pescod Square
The Pescod Square shopping complex is a £22 million development in the center of Booston that will, when it is finished, have 23 shops (including some big national names) and 400 car parking spaces. The first shop is due to pen this autumn and the whole development should be finished by May 2004.
The shopping center is being built behind Marks and Spencer and Oldrids, the two biggest shops in the town, and will be next to the pedestrian precinct on Wide Bargate.
Unfortunately, no prices are yet available for the rent on any of the shops in the center, and there are no precise details as to the actual floor size
This will definitely be the busiest place in Boston. The arrival of High Street shops, such as Next and Ottakers, in the town will mean that more people will come into Boston from nearby towns and villagers. The car parking will also attract persons to the centre.
The biggest problem with taking one of the units in the shopping centre is that there is already another large chain sports shop nearby. JJB Sport has a shop on Strait Bargate. However, this shop clearly shows the need for another sports shop in Boston. JJB Sport is always very busy, and the are often delays while people queue to pay for their goods. The shop they have is not really big enough for the demand for sports clothes and equipment.
Below is a site plan of the proposed shopping centre
Below is an artist impression of what the shopping centre will look like when it is complete
I have done a SWOT analysis on each of the two sites I have mentioned.
Final Decision
I decided to open my new shop in the Pescod Square shopping centre. I made this decision because I believe the shopping centre will be very popular. It is indoors, and people will prefer to go there when the weather is bad. It is a smaller unit than the one in Market Place and will be cheaper to run and staff. Although it is near a branch of a major chain of sports shops, my shop will be more specialist and will attract customers who will come to mine for specific items as well as people just browsing.
