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Introduction

Nikki Goodall Business GCSE Studies Coursework To investigate the possibility of setting up a business in my local shopping centre Interview with the manager questions: Below are some questions I may choose to ask in my interview with the manager of the Abbey Centre: *Who are the Abbey centre's anchor tenants? *What are the centre's opening and closing times? *What are the future plans in the development of the Abbey centre? *Which constraints are put on perspective businesses in the Abbey centre? * Does the unit cost of a business depend on its location in the Abbey centre? *Which shops have previously failed? *Which shops do you feel are missing? *Which shops generate the most sales per annum? *What security does the Abbey centre offer? *Are there any shops which you feel there are too much off? *Is there any reason why most of the clothes shops are women orientated? *Do you feel there is a need of more male orientated clothes shops? Nikki Goodall Business GCSE Studies Coursework. To investigate the possibility of setting up a business in my local shopping centre. Plan of action: My aim is to investigate the possibility of setting up a business in my local shopping centre, the Abbey centre. I will take into account a number of steps when deciding how to go about this, there is also a number of useful resources I can obtain information from. First I must build up a customer profile. From this I can collect the data and record it in tally charts. To obtain this information I will use a questionnaire, which will be drafted then re-drafted and given out to twenty random customers to provide a wide range of information so that I may get realistic results. In distributing these questionnaires I will be using random sampling. The questionnaire will generally entail: *What age groups there are, what genders of customer, how far customer travels. ...read more.

Middle

They also might be useful as they may have previously conducted surveys in the past so they may have useful information to aid me in my investigation. Manager: The manager of the Abbey centre can provide me with information on the day to day running of the centre. By interviewing Mr Steel, the manager, he can inform me on things such as: *Renting and leasing *Security offered *Most popular days and busiest times *Market budgets, advertising and promotions throughout the year *Competition from other shopping centres *Customer stats *Anchor tenants currently at the centre *Refurbishments and development proposals *Maintenance staff *Previously failed, and currently successful businesses at the centre *Any other important information. The manager is a vital key in this investigation as he holds the most information about the Abbey centre. Questionnaires: To find out information from the customers I will go to the Abbey centre and distribute 20 questionnaires using random sampling. The advantage of using a questionnaire is that it is detailed and qualitative information on the customers opinions. It is a form of a primary source research which means it is up to date and is brand new information. The questionnaire will ask things such as: *Are you male or female? *What age are you? *What is your favourite/least favourite shop? *What shops would you most like to see at the Abbey centre? Internet: The Internet is one of the latest forms of communication technology. L.E.D.U has its own website under www.ledu.co.uk and is just as useful as visiting the L.E.D.U office. It has all the necessary links to setting up a small business, business plans and business finance etc... and I can print out any information that might be useful. Bank: I can go to the bank and organise an interview with the manager. By doing this I can go through all the options that I need to take into account when i am setting up my business. ...read more.

Conclusion

in the spreadsheet conclusions and I also feel that small sized shops do not attract many customers as they appear crowded and having little variation in the clothing. I also want to avoid setting up a large sized clothes store as I am only setting up in business and will need money for resources in my business and so a large shop would drastically effect capital and increase risk. For these reasons I recommend a medium sized clothes store. From the map showing zones in the Abbey centre I recommend setting up my business in zone 4, away from competition of the other popular male clothes stores such as D2, Burtons and Jeanster. Final Recommendations: *French Connection, medium sized store, zone 4. I obtained additional information on the bank and LEDU from the Internet. Bank of Ireland: To set up my business I will need a starting capital first of all, which means I can go to the bank for a loan. The bank can offer me a wide range of accounting and finance. The bank of Ireland offers a range of services to meet the needs of start up businesses and to help those businesses grow. These include current account and saving schemes. Overdrafts, asset finance, loans under the small firms loan guarantee scheme, all of which are needed and are useful in setting up a business. LEDU: LEDU is the leading agency for local economic development in Northern Ireland. It helps businesses that normally employ fewer than 50 people in the manufacturing and trade services sectors. It is a small business agency for Northern Ireland set up in 1971 to encourage small businesses to grow and become more competitive and so will strengthen the local community. It will provide me with all the necessary information when setting up my business. Its assistance includes: *Business advice and counselling. *Business start training. *Financial training. The programme meets many needs in the starting up a business process and provides everything initially needed to start up. ...read more.

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