Evaluation of National Markets Day and Love Your
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Evaluation of Love Your Local Market 2012 Contents 1 Background and Approach.......................................................................................2 2 Executive Summary..................................................................................................5 3 National Survey of Market Managers......................................................................7 4 Impact on Footfall..................................................................................................18 5 Local Case Studies..................................................................................................22 Ludlow Market.................................................................................................22 Bolton Markets................................................................................................42 Portobello & Golborne Market.........................................................................67 Fleetwood and Poulton-le-Fylde Markets.........................................................84 Bradford (Shipley) Market..............................................................................105 6 Recommendations for Future..............................................................................125 7 Credentials...........................................................................................................128 1 Background and Approach The idea for a National Market Day (which morphed into the Love Your Local Market fortnight) was one of the 28 recommendations of the Portas Review into the future of the UK’s High Streets. The Review was published in December 2011, therefore there was precious little planning time available between recommendations and the opening of the first Love Your Local Market event on June 23rd 2012. Nontheless, it was clear there should be an independent assessment of the effectiveness of the initiative and a collation of good and bad outcomes to inform approach for any follow-up in future years. ROI Team won the task to evaluate Love Your Local Market 2012 following a call for proposals briefed by NABMA on behalf of funding partners the DCLG and the NMTF and we were appointed in May 2012. ROI Team (www.roiteam.co.uk) pitched for this work in conjunction with Town Centre Specialists MAKE Associates (www.makeassociates.com) and we have worked with MAKE through all stages of this task from planning, through information gathering, collation of information, and reporting and we thank them warmly for their support. The project brief centred around 3 lines of evaluation, which are reported separately in this report: National Survey of Market Managers The objective here was to assess the impact of LYLM across markets nationally through the perceptions and judgements of the professionals running participating markets, probing dimensions such as: How markets participated in LYLM What they did and what they offered Support offered to New Traders Local impact of LYLM on market and town Our objective was to evaluate the response from the managers of as many of the 281 participating markets as possible. We devised a survey approach based on a user-friendly questionnaire, offering a range of methods for completion in order to maximize response levels. Following active canvassing for responses we were able to analyse returns from 139 market managers, representing well over half of all markets that initially registered their intention to participate in LYLM. Impact of LYLM on footfall in markets An uncalibrated increase in footfall was an objective of LYLM, and ROI Team was briefed to analyse this using whatever evidence could be found. 2 In fact we discovered that only 30% of participating markets claim to have any method for assessing footfall, and only 7 of 281 participating markets measure footfall objectively. To enable any form of assessment, we were fortunate to have co-operation from PFM (who count foot traffic in markets electronically) and Springboard (who count foot traffic in town centres). Both companies very helpfully provided data for analysis without charge. Although the data provided is clearly not comprehensive, it does provide a very clear indication of the effectiveness of LYLM in enhancing footfall, which is reported below. We strongly recommend that the markets sector should consider setting up more modern and effective systems for assessing the impact of national initiatives like LYLM on footfall and also on market turnover. Five Local Case Studies We were tasked to assess the approach to LYLM and its impact on 5 specific markets and town centres. These were: Wyre Council (Fleetwood and Poulton-le-Fylde) Ludlow Bolton Bradford Portobello and Golborne Road Our findings from these 5 markets are reported as individual Case Studies within this report. In fact, as we imagined, the deeper information and experience gathered through these local studies revealed insight, observation, witness and recommendations that have been very valuable in informing the national picture – especially as regards best practice and recommendations for the future. For this important aspect of our work we identified the importance of on-the-spot questioning and observation during the LYLM event. In response for each location we assembled a fieldwork team comprising an ROI Team / MAKE leader with interviewers recruited locally for their knowledge of the town, market, and shoppers. The backbone of these studies was a slate of some 30 ‘Depth Interviews’ per location with all market stakeholders i.e. Shoppers/visitors New Traders Existing Traders Nearby shopkeepers Market manager(s) 3 Interviews were recorded via ink on paper, with our fieldwork teams supplementing perceptions of LYLM in action by way of photos and video recordings of interviews. In addition to ‘at the time’ observation by our fieldwork visit, we also wanted to assess the medium term influence of LYLM on New Traders, town and market. Therefore in late September / early October we made follow-up by phone with market manager and with as many New Traders as we could. Data and information from all three lines of research were collated and analysed in house by ROI Team. We have presented interim findings at the NABMA Conference in September 2012 (Local Case Studies) and at a meeting of the DCLG Markets Working Group in November (National Survey). We thank NABMA, NMTF, and DCLG who commissioned our work and who have provided support and advice at various points, our collaborators at MAKE Associates, and many market professionals who have responded and supported our work with unfailing enthusiasm. We thank you all for this opportunity and hope that our work will be informative and helpful for future guidance. Nabma wishes to thank Bizaar (www.bizaar.net) for their generous assistance in helping to provide digital copies of this report to market professionals. Andrew McCall Managing Director ROI Team www.roiteam.co.uk December 2012 4 Executive Summary Our evaluation indicates that Love Your Local Market 2012 has successfully addressed its major objectives: We project that more than 220 markets participated nationally Participating markets provided more than 2,000 pitches for New Traders to taste market trading Three months after the close of LYLM some 200 New Traders were still trading, indicating a promising number of new market careers Despite very poor weather, the event triggered an average increase in footfall of 3.9% in participating markets (compared with a decline of 6.3% for all town centres for the period – suggesting an ‘LYLM factor’ of more than 10%) With no evaluation system available it is harder to endorse any increase in trading revenue triggered by LYLM. But our consistent experience of other retail locations is that an increase in footfall correlates with an increase in spend There was a good spread of participating markets across England, with a concentration in London and the NW. However take-up was very low across Scotland, NI, and Wales. Evidence of the National Survey is that LYLM was best supported by bigger markets. Main reasons given by managers for not participating are: Limited time to plan and set up Limited availability of management time and funding Our exposure to the event at local level indicates a wide spectrum in levels of preparation, resource provided, and levels and range of supporting activity. Whilst there are stories of heroic levels of activity from tiny markets, the general picture is that well-resourced and well- organised markets achieved the best outcomes and greatest impact from LYLM. An expectation of the project was that New Traders introduced by LYLM would learn from seasoned existing traders. Our perception however at all markets that we visited was that New Traders had well developed skills for displaying their offer and in particular for engaging potential customers at their stall. In fact the potential for learning was in both directions. Unprompted awareness of the event was weak among all stakeholder groups. However when prompted by the LYLM logo approximately half recognised the logo or recalled the Mary Portas heritage. Perception was that promotion was completely inadequate and that such promotion as there was had been too inward-facing and not sufficiently targeted at shoppers. Certainly awareness of the event was stronger among traders than among shoppers. 5 All stakeholders warmed to the concept of LYLM and readily identified the potential for tangential wins such as: Work opportunities Training for young people