Crowds turn out for the launch of Morpeth’s new Market

Hundreds of people turned out to see the brand new market being launched in Morpeth at the weekend along with the town’s first ever Food and Drink Festival.

Star of the BBC’s Apprentice, Adam Corbally, joined traders and civic dignitaries at the event which was held in Morpeth town centre on Saturday October 5th.

After an official civic launch of the new market cooking demonstrations, competitions and games were held throughout the day with both the Town Hall Food and Drink Festival and the new stalls on the market place pulling in the crowds throughout the day.

Declaring the new market open, the Mayor of Morpeth Cllr Joan Tebbutt read from the original market charter which was granted to Roger de Merley in 1199 for the cost of thirteen pounds, six shillings and eight pence – allowing the town to hold a weekly market and an annual fair.

Cllr Tebbutt added: “There has been a market held on this spot for all those years and it’s fantastic to see the new market here today.

“We’ve had a number of changes over the years in the town, the Sanderson Arcade development, the brand new supermarket on the edge of the town centre – rather than on the edge of the town itself. And now this fantastic new market, which we really hope will bring many more people into the town and help to keep the town centre viable.”

The team at Sanderson Arcade, Morpeth’s award winning shopping centre, are working with Morpeth Town Team, Northumberland County Council and Morpeth Town Council on the new project with the aim of putting the weekly Wednesday Market and monthly Farmers’ Market on the map.

New stalls and branding as well as anchor points and a local marketing campaign have been introduced as part of the unique public-private partnership initiative, Saturday’s Farmer’s Market and Food Festival was the first opportunity to see the new stalls and layout.

Adam, who started his working life as a market trader kicked off the cooking demonstrations after the official opening and hosted the demonstration kitchen on the market place throughout the day as local chefs showcased some of their own favourite dishes.

He said: “”It really is a breath of fresh air to see an initiative like this and to see everyone working together and realising that High Street shopping isn’t just about one thing or the other, it’s about the whole town coming together and the community working together – making it an ideal place to shop. It’s great to be part of a project like this and fantastic to see what has been achieved here in Morpeth.”

Centre Manager at Sanderson Arcade Medi Parry said the feedback from Saturday’s market has been really positive – the new stalls will next be used on the Wednesday weekly market.

She added: “Everyone has really worked together to make this a fantastic celebration of what can be achieved, the town was really buzzing on Saturday.

“We are delighted to be involved with the new market in Morpeth and are confident it will continue to grow and thrive, we are already planning on making the Food and Drink Festival an annual event in the town.”

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Adam Corbally Talks Markets with MTN.

I am lucky enough to have just returned from a weeks holiday in an affordable paradise a lot of us Brits have made our annual escape, Egypt.

The day I arrived back in the good old green land I love to call my home, tragically, as we all know too well, there are the troubles in Cairo, although where we stayed far away in Hurgarda it was so peaceful and relaxed you wouldn’t have a clue that you were in the same country, that was until you happened to walk past a shop, or anyone selling anything for that matter, when all of a sudden you were bartering with one of the locals whether you liked it or not and being plain rude was sometimes the only way to say no.

Now don’t get me wrong it was my first time in Egypt and I fell in love with the country immediately, striking me as a place blessed with 365 days a year of sunshine, amazing history and tourist attractions. Even hosting one of the seven wonders of the world along with a coast line that rivals that of the Caribbean and to top it off at a recession friendly price with an all inclusive deal that left me musing over it like a countdown numbers game of how the tour operators even made it pay?

Then it all became clear, on arrival at the Airport the Egyptian humidity hit me almost as hard as the sellers at the Airport, just after we had landed, who on earth tries to sell something to you on arrival when all you want to do is get to your Hotel, throw some shorts on and jump in the pool? The Egyptians, that’s who, as they are desperate for the sale.

The next morning we were met with the same aggressive sales tactics whilst making our way from the restaurant area to the pool, “My friend, come and buy” and “English” was blurted out by a row of shop keepers simultaneously whilst each one tried to usher us into their market arcade style shop. I hate this style of hard sell and the truth was we were actually looking for a lilo, but were put off by this aggressive approach.

The next day we visited the harbour and looked around the shops for that all important souvenirs (and of course the lilo we still hadn’t bought) and were met with the same hard sell time after time with pushy stall holders trying to sell us mainly counterfeit goods at inflated prices. This time, ready and willing to buy, I did just that at about 20% of the price that they first stated and whilst I was at it tried to make them realise that the hard sell isn’t always the best way and sometimes actually alienates people into not wanting to buy off you at that moment or worse still, ever again or even walk past the place. As you can imagine my Egyptian is not great and a lot of what I was trying to say was lost in translation, although what was unmistakable was the raw thirst in their eyes for a sale, which seemed to override anything else, the raw thirst that I had on my first day trading at 19, the one that didn’t see going home empty handed that night as an option.

This thirst for a sale is the type of motivation that is key to maintaining a healthy bottom line and for me is maintained by constantly setting myself new targets. Although of course, like anything, it has to be controlled and used wisely, to be on the buying end of the deal instead of a selling for a change did me the world of good and made me realise that there is a very fine line between being persuasive and being pushy, being a bit of a maverick and being a mither.

Our Markets are a great place to shop, visit and just have a good old walk round, it is our job to make sure that we continue to make everyone’s trip to see us an amazing customer experience. Promoting the atmosphere Great British Markets are famous for and ensuring people visit our markets again and again, week after week, year after year, getting value for money on amazing products with a customer service to match. In doing so, spurring on our next generation of traders for the long term and of course our valued regular customers.

You can catch up with my own brand at www.Adamcorbally.co.uk Twitter @TheAdamCorbally

Adam Corbally - Stay the right side of business's Smoke and Mirrors !

Well, I’m sure that the gorgeous weather has brought out the customers and with it some unwelcome competition.

I personally like competition, it makes you up your game and brings out the best in businesses, although the best person to compete against is yourself by asking yourself the simple question: ‘Can anyone else be doing something to threaten my business?’

If the answer is ‘yes’, then why aren’t you doing it instead?

I saw the new movie about a criminal gang of illusionists, Now You See Me, recently where the ‘magic’ is keeping the victim close and thinking they are looking at the trick when the trick is happening elsewhere. It’s the same in business, you have to keep the competition close and focused on what you are doing while all the time working on a new plan to develop the business further, without them knowing until it is too late. In this way you get to use your existing brand and overheads you already have in place to launch a new product or service, while the competition would have to start from scratch and take a much bigger risk.

Now take the tragic example of Blockbuster, who must be wishing they had remained one step ahead of the competition in the shape of LoveFilm or Netflix, who have cornered the online presence for film rentals. The key is never to let your business get complacent no matter how big you get. This is a technology driven fast changing business world we live in today, so we all have to be thinking ‘what next, where’s the next big thing I can tap into that is in line with my existing business?’ Comet, too, would have wished they had established a strong online presence in their heydays before all the competition got a head start on them.

It may be a cliché, but if we do what we have always done, we only get what we always have and, these days, that’s just not good enough. Another good example of creating you own competition to stay ahead of you rivals is the Independent newspaper, which set up the cheaper tabloid form of itself, the ‘i’. This new product has largely made up for flagging sales with the parent broadsheet offering. The Daily Mail, too, was quick to exploit the growth of online content provision by getting in early and investing heavily to become a major global player in this sector while other UK newspapers, which sold more hard copies than the Mail, are lagging behind in the digital market.

Online continues to grow apace and I find myself doing more transactions through my mobile phone than any other way and consumers are increasingly doing this. By exploring the chinks in your armour you can head off potential threats to your business before the rivals spot the potential. We all need to sit down and take a hard look at what would pose the biggest challenge to our businesses, both today and looking to the future.

So whether its introducing a new line to our stalls? delivery service? putting together that well overdue website? or maybe even bringing in that direct debit machine you have always talked about? it’s vital for us traders to keep exploring ways to raise the bar before someone else raises the bar for us!

The question is, what is stopping us from trying something new?

The answer, Ourselves.

You can catch up with my own brand at www.Adamcorbally.co.uk Twitter @TheAdamCorbally

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Adam Corbally Talks Markets - July 2013

As a market trader I was always a bit bemused when people told me they were in ‘Marketing’.

The power of marketing and branding really came home to me when I was asked to address some business leaders at Tower Hall in London recently, on promotional merchandising. Items like pens, caps, books and sticky notes, all these depend on the power of branding and how it has to be out there available to the public. If you get your brand awareness right then it can work for you 24/7, selling your product or service all over the place even when your stall isn’t open and you aren’t trading. Of course, we all know why branding works, but what makes one brand more powerful than another and how can businesses apply this power to their own products and services? So, I started looking at the successful brands that carry this power to the marketplace and reap the rewards of instant recognition.

Take Facebook – it was no different as a business model than MySpace and Bebo, but it got the brand image just right, it was out there and accessible and it kept evolving and changing as any successful business needs to.

Likewise Twitter, with its bird, which is an icon that says the brand with no words whatsoever and that has given the brand its place in the market head-and-shoulders over the competition.

In the UK we have our own spectacular banding success with Innocent smoothies, founded by three Cambridge University graduates, Richard Reed, Adam Balon and Jon Wright. If they had come to me 10 years ago saying they had a brilliant business idea that is a fruit juice smoothy I would have said, “That’s a rubbish idea and it’s been done many time before - it will never work!” But the reason Innocent did work was because they got the brand and the marketing just right and they got it into the right places. A friend of mine did some promotional work for them recently in Leicester Square, giving away 5,000-litres of smoothies and money off vouchers. While the UK fruit juice market was worth £4.1Bn in 2010, it is the power of the Innocent brand that sets it apart from the others. Compare that to the competitors at the time when Innocent launched who were also doing smoothies, companies like Schweppes and Tropicana. These were chiefly known for other products; sparkling mixers for Schweppes and orange juice for Tropicana. Innocent comes along and brands itself as THE maker of smoothies. Couple that to the ‘innocent’ approach of juice with zero additives and a product that provides not one, but two of your five-a-day fruit or veg requirements and the product looks attractive for the time-hungry modern professional. Even the packaging is simple and cool, with inclusive messages including ‘pop into Fruit Towers and tell us what you think’ – simple, open and cool for people of all ages. Naturally, one strong brand then gets bought out by another big brand – the daddy of them all, Coca-Cola, the most recognisable brand in the world. If you saw that logo anywhere in the world you would know what it stands for and what it sells. You are just as likely to see that brand name on a T-shirt, a cap, or a football as you are to see it on a bottle or a tin can. How can we, as market traders, apply this to our own businesses? I’ve done this myself with my Union Jack logo, which I use on all stationery, wall planners and calendars and of course vans, which are whizzing round the county every day - and I dare say that when people in my town see my logo, they instantly associate it with quality fruit and veg. I invested a lot of my own time in creating this logo to make sure that it was instantly recognisable and it worked. The name and logo has to be short, snappy and fitting to what products or services you can offer, then get your brand out there through social media and promotional merchandising. The reason why Innocent and Coca-Cola use merchandising is because it works and drives home the message and the brand. So, go on, get branded and get out there!

You can catch up with my own brand at www.Adamcorbally.co.uk Twitter @TheAdamCorbally

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Government Backs Love Your Local Market

The Markets industry was taken by surprise at the Nabma January Seminar when Communities Minister The Rt Hon Don Foster MP outlined the Government’s support for the 2013 Love your Local Market scheme with significant financial support .

The Minister began by acknowledging that the last few years have been a tricky time for markets and his department have been keen to help the sector meet the challenge. The Minister acknowledged that over the last two years help had been provided but in the absence of finance. The Minister paid tribute to Nabma for its endeavours in Love your Local Market and presented the Nabma President, Council Mrs. Geraldine Carter with a cheque for £25,000 with the aim of helping Nabma help turn the passing interest of a wannabe trader into a fulfilling career.

The Nabma President, Councillor Mrs. Geraldine Carter admitted that Nabma was stunned by the presentation.
“We are overwhelmed by this generous support from Government. This is a huge endorsement for the work that we have been carrying out and clearly shows that we are making an impact with our commitment and investment. Love your Local Market 2013 will now be even bigger and better”.

Nabma Chief Executive, Graham  Wilson OBE, told MTN, " Love Your Local Market provided a great boost to the markets last year with research showing that markets that took part experienced a 10% increase in footfall. With the government's financial backing and support from our headline sponsor Radfords, we aim to make it bigger and better this year. Every market in the country should be getting involved"

Also at the conference, Nabma delegates were overwhelmed with a presentation by Joe and Tom Barrett, the creators of the Stockport Teenage Market.

The Teenage Market was described as a creative space for young people to connect and collaborate in, giving a platform to young creative entrepreneurs who become market traders for the day as they sell their products to customers.  It also gives young performers, musicians, singer songwriters, dancers etc the chance to show their skills to an audience.  The first even was held in April 2012.

The young people have developed a very positive relationship with Stockport Market and also Stockport Council.
Over 70 applicants were received for the first market and 20 local musicians wanted a platform to showcase their own talent.

The event has attracted huge media interest and importantly thousands of people visiting the Teenage Market on the day.

Adam Corbally talks Markets.

Whilst at the Airport on a recent trip to Amsterdam, I couldn’t help but get lost in the maze of perfume, pen shops and Pharmacists, not to mention being approached with the golden opportunity of winning a supercar, which is only fit for driving on a grand prix circuit as it is so low to the floor, not to mention the cost of insurance, fuel and, of course, you can’t exactly throw a sack of spuds into the back of Lamboghini!

Whilst trying to find my way out of the shops and make my way to my terminal, it set me to thinking how all of these over priced perfume shops were making it pay?

It seemed that the airport I was in, namely Manchester, had, like every other I have visited in many parts of the world, all had one thing in common, they were BUSY. I mean, these places have every single inch of retail space utilised.

I asked myself the question, what is to be learnt from this experience? Is it to open 10 over priced perfume and pen stalls on markets nationwide? No, certainly not, there is one reason that Airport retail space is, in my opinion, the only retail space in the world that is recession proof, lets face it when was the last time you saw a “closing down sale” or an empty shop in an airport? That reason is FOOTFALL, plain and simple. The retailers are pretty much guaranteed passengers or, more importantly, customers on a daily basis with money to spend and just as important, time on their hands.

OK, so how can we learn from our Airports success and create footfall for our markets and, more importantly, get them to hang around and spend money!?

There are lots of answers out there, although a great one is host an Event! I’m sure by now every market has someone running their social media marketing and advertising campaign, which is a fantastic free way to reach a direct target market and let them know what you have planned. In the early stages of planning an event you can even ask for ideas from your friends/followers on what THEY would like to see on their local market?

Once you have pulled together a few positive like minded people from your market to organise and host an event, it is surprising how this sort of thing can gain momentum and support very quickly. When your market managers see you making the effort they will be more willing to provide support and I dare say you might even be able to squeeze a few quid out of them too.

As I have said before, it is the longevity and viability of markets which is key, so please do make sure that any event compliments the existing traders and more importantly falls on a usual trading day, as the idea is the extra footfall of customers on the day see the market in all its glory and make a return trip the week after, attracts some new regulars and maybe even inspires some new traders!

Ideas for events can be anything to attract footfall, hold a crowd and you needn’t worry about a budget too much as there are lots of people you could attract to perform and use the event as free publicity for themselves and a chance to showcase their product/service. A couple of ideas are - get in touch with your local dance troop and ask them to do 3 performances on the day for nothing in return, to be included in all of the publicity before the event and the chance to sell themselves on the day. Ask your local bouncy castle/face painter/ kids face painter along on the same deal and why not even ask your local beauty college shop to attend and all have fun having taster sessions of treatments? Im sure you may even be able to entice the fire brigade down, use the Fire Brigade as a massive attraction for the kids and in return they get to promote fire safety and prevention. You could involve Schools, Youth Clubs, Martial arts Do Jos, Army cadets and Scouts on the day.

After all the list of opportunities for an event is endless, especially if you have empty stalls. There are so many ways to FILL them!

I can pretty much guarantee that your local newspaper/ radio station would love to promote the event for free if you make sure the most enthusiastic member of your team gets in touch with them with the agenda and as we know, a story gets more attention than an advert and costs nothing!  

I rarely use or like clichés, but it is true to say “If you build it they will come” so start building and please do get in touch via my website as I am keen to hear news of everyone’s ideas and events.

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NABMA NEWS April 2013

NABMA The Voice of Local Authority Markets.

The Love Your Local Market campaign is now in full swing and we have already had five excellent Roadshows as we build momentum towards the fortnight of the campaign between the 15th -29th May.
Our first call was at Borough Market where a packed audience were able to see the redeveloped market at first hand. It is clear that the redevelopment has enhanced the visual appearance of the market and also Borough's reputation as one of the leading markets in the country. There was tremendous enthusiasm for getting involved and over half the audience were new to LYLM, which is a theme that has continued throughout the Roadshows.
Next stop was Darlington where we heard about the success of the Peoples Market which was a new Sunday Market launched on the back of LYLM 2012. The presentation illustrated lots of new ideas for using social media to engage with your audience and get new traders. The Peoples Market continues to thrive and achieves significant increases in town centre footfall when it is held in the town.
Part of the attraction of LYLM is looking at ideas to launch new markets and Nabma has produced a publication “Getting Started” which has lots of tips to help in setting up new markets. You can download a copy from the Nabma website at www.nabma.com

A central feature of the Roadshows is taking the Nabma offer to more people and providing information about what is happening in the wider markets world. This was a key feature of the Roadshow at Wisbech where the Town Council has recently taken over the running of the market and is already implementing a number of initiatives to engage more effectively with traders and stakeholders.  The BIS consultation on pedlars featured significantly on the agenda and a number of people spoke about the problems they faced in their own areas. This was a consistent theme throughout the Roadshows with no support at all for what BIS is proposing. Hopefully they will listen to the representations.
The two most recent Roadshows were held in Barnsley and Leeds and it is was great to hear of the success stories in both towns and the enthusiasm and skills of the market officers.
Barnsley is one of the biggest markets in the country and the occupancy levels remain consistently high. It is clear that Barnsley has a very proactive approach to stall and shop lettings and this policy has paid dividends. Barnsley is intending to launch a market app during LYLM 2013 and we look forward to featuring this as one of the highlights of this year's campaign.
Leeds was the venue for the next Roadshow and a full house in the conference facility at the Kirkgate Market heard about the Council's proposals for a £12m redevelopment scheme of the market. Leeds is clearly witnessing exciting times and the market redevelopment is a key element of the overall programme. Leeds also told us about the opening of the Marks and Spencer Shop in the Kirkgate Market which brings the company back to their original roots. Perhaps the opening in Leeds might be a first for a new approach from the major High Street retailer. We will watch with interest.
A key part of Nabma's approach to LYLM has been to provide resources to help markets celebrate LYLM in the most effective way. We have produced a media pack, best practice guide and merchandising material. All these resources can be downloaded from the Nabma website at www.namba.com

LYLM 2013 will be launched at Portobello and Golborne Road Market on the 15th May at 10.30 and  prior to that date Nabma will be hosting a Parliamentary Reception on the 29th April to create further interest among parliamentarians and the wider markets industry.
So far over 200 markets have signed up for LYLM 2013. What is encouraging is that over half of these markets  did not take part last year. This year our targets are 500 markets and 3000 new traders. We need your help to achieve these targets. If you have not already signed up please do so now. If you want any information please contact me. Everything you need is on the Nabma website at www.nabma.com

Graham Wilson OBEChief Executive,Nabma

National Association of British Market AuthoritiesThe Guildhall, Oswestry,Shropshire SY11 1PZ.Tel: 01691 680713

Email: nabma@nabma.com

 

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Adam Corbally talks Markets.

Adam Corbally talks Markets.

Welcome to my column once again and I don’t know about you, but I thought that January flew by!
On a positive note, I would like to wish each and every one of you a very happy Valentines day and encourage you to create an opportunity. Go on and try that new line to sell on your stall and maybe even send that card? I know some of us did get a lot of snow towards the end of January, but it seems the majority of us suffered from bad weather “Press warnings” rather than actual bad weather early on in January, which was very frustrating as a lot of my regulars gave the market and their normal routine a miss whilst the warnings were in place.

I was very upset to see the recession, and arguably technology, have claimed another three victims in Jessops, HMV and Blockbuster.
It seems that as we destroy the Amazon rain forest on one hand, we fuel ‘Amazon’ online with more sales than ever and they keep breaking sales figures year on year.
It is easy for us to blame ‘technology’ for the failure of the above mentioned businesses, but for every part of me that feels very sorry for the failure of the businesses causing the ever changing face of our high streets and of course the tragic loss of jobs, as traders we need to also realise that technology and the likes of ‘Amazon’ are just a new version of the competition we have always faced and we need to come up with new ways to compete against them.
I think it’s no coincidence the three stores that went to the wall in January all sold electrical goods and it seems to me the problem is customers using us as ‘showrooms’ to touch and get the feel for products, before going home to look online for the best price and then get the product delivered to their door. This is the reason we have to up our game as retailers and make sure that we give the customer reason to buy there and then, rather than go home and have a think about it and end up purchasing the product online.
I know myself that profit margins are tough and I would not encourage discounts as the way to close a sale for two main reasons, the first being of course we don’t want to lose any profit on the sale and the second, a lot of online businesses offer a price match promise anyway. So lets give the online retailers a real run for their money, do what we do best and use our customer service skills to bring added value to the sale and encourage the customer to buy there and then. Ideas for this include; free delivery the same day, simply drop the goods off on your way home (I always use this and it works really well, even with the smaller items); offer something free into the sale that doesn’t cost you too much, i.e. batteries for the product, carry case, extra charger etc; on going technical support i.e. if they have a problem operating/using the product they can always feel welcome to come down and ask for help with it; free recipes to encourage customers to shop more regular at food stores and a way of selling extra goods. Literally anything that you can give the customer for ‘free’, which hasn’t got a high cost value to you, is worth its weight in gold to them and works wonders to close a sale. This tactic of offering added value to a sale can also be applied to almost any sale. A great example was over Christmas we were offering free Mistletoe, which costs next to nothing, with every Christmas Tree we sold. The customers were over the moon and it really helped close lots of sales as the customer felt they were receiving a discount of £3.99, when in fact it only cost me £1.00
I sincerely hope that you are all having a prosperous 2013 so far and you are enjoying my column. Some feedback from fellow traders is always very welcome and a great way to do this and promote your business and your products is via “Twitter” - my twitter name is @TheAdamCorbally and I always follow traders back.
It was great to meet some fellow traders who attended my Business and sales skills bootcamp in January, which was held at the Raddison Manchester, and I would personally like to invite you all to this months to be held at the same venue on Wednesday the 20th. Please get in touch via my website AdamCorbally.co.uk for availability and be sure to mention Market Trade News to receive your trader discount.
I am really excited for this years ‘Love Your Local Market’ campaign and I hope that you all have your thinking caps on for ideas of how to promote YOUR Local market!
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