Wilmslow Town Council has decided to appoint an independent local market research company to look into the impact of Artisan Market on trading patterns in the town.
Councillors voted unanimously to appoint Wilmslow based Wendy Dunn Research at a cost of over £3000 to help them determine whether the market should stay on a Saturday or move to a Sunday.
Last month Wilmslow Town Council passed a motion to investigate how much it would cost to do market research into the Artisan Market. As a result Wendy Dunn was approached about getting a retailers view on whether the market should be held on a Saturday or Sunday and submitted a proposal to the Town Council.
Wendy has been operating a full service market research company for 10 years, her clients include Marks & Spencer, Warburtons and Kellogg's and her projects range in value from £10,000 to £70,000.
Speaking at this week's town council meeting, Wendy said "To do this comprehensively now we need to illicit the response of in the region of 80% of all the retailers in whatever we see as our universe.
"It is a short, very straightforward, simple questionnaire and I think we need to cover initially the impact that the Artisan Market has had on their business, positive, negative or no impact. Then we understand how people currently perceive what the Artisan Market has done for their business and then whether they would want the market on a Saturday or Sunday.
"It is a really really straightforward objective in terms of what we need to do and what we need to find out and then statistically I have a fabulous statistician who works with me and will tell me that this has been statistically significant one way or the other. If it comes out split then we have to make a decision."
Cllr Ruth McNulty commented "It is very difficult to conduct research in a hypothetical setting, research done before we have experience of the Sunday market will be hypothetical. So if we agree to do this research I would much prefer we have conducted this market in November."
Cllr Jim Crockatt raised concerns about whether they would gain anything from the research. He said "I have some reservations about doing market research because as far as I can see there are two answers we can get, one is yes it is best to be on a Saturday or it is better on a Sunday. I don't know whether detailed research is going to give us any better answer than we probably have at this moment."
Cllr Keith Purdom responded "To me the debate really goes around two central points, have you got enough information now to make a decision or do we need to spend some money to help us and secondly are we going to ignore a sizeable body of the retailers that keep Wilmslow town vibrant and lively and give us somewhere to shop, are we going to ignore their views and leave it on a Saturday?
"it might not be an absolute majority but we know there are a lot of retailers who are of the opinion that they want the market moved."
He added "I think that the dilemma is - we have a proposal that's passed to spend the money and we make a decision, if we don't then we're going to make a decision tonight, next month but we're going to have to make that decision ourselves based on no more evidence than we've got today."
Cllr Gary Barton requested that the survey also asks whether there are any other issues they feel have had an impact on their business and Cllr Martin Watkins requested that businesses are asked whether they currently open on a Sunday.
The proposal from Wendy Dunn included the town centre and the shops on Chapel Lane but the Town Council agreed that the research should be widened to include retailers at Summerfields and Lacey Green.
Wendy agreed to add to the two extra questions at no additional cost but said increasing the sample size, universe, will incur additional costs - which will be less than £500.
Wilmslow Town Councillors voted unanimously to appoint Wendy Dunn Research, to spend £3000 plus the additional money to cover all the retailers in Wilmslow and for the research to be carried out after the first Sunday market is held on Sunday 17th November.
Comments
Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.
The market is the most successful event in wilmslow for many years. On non-market saturdays the streets are very quiet.
The stupidity of interfering with a winning formula, and putting the whole event at risk is incredible.
Reading all the above, and other threads on this site and wilmslow.co.uk , one thing is clear. NO mention of the visitors/customers ! Where in the above article does it say the visitors (really the only people that matter) will be surveyed on whether they prefer Sat or Sun ? We know they like Saturday, as the event is always very busy. But will they come on a Sunday ? Which would they prefer ?
Nov and Dec are on Sunday, but it's not a real test in the xmas period. Personally I think Sat is a shopping day, and people have other things to do on sundays. A permanent switch to Sun will ruin the event.
Why does the Jeweller object? Is someone running a stall with watches for £6999!
Personally I am pleased that Wilmslow Town Council is actively and independently assessing the need for/impact of a Saturday market, as opposed to a Sunday market. The people who argue that they prefer Saturday have not invested any of their own money in the retail premises. I seem to recall a Restaurant was complaining that Saturday market days resulted in lower turnover; if your business suffers from markets, why should you have to support the idea?
It will be interesting to find out how many businesses (in the privacy of a private study) actually say that they get extra business from the market days.
I would have thought if you wanted to get in the jewellers or any other shop on Grove Street it's quite possible when the market is on. Again the market might bring in one more customer ready and willing to pay £7000 for a watch. :)
Try getting in some of those shops on a daily basis when you are pushing a wheelchair, try getting around Hoopers without knocking into a display. Now that is a problem.