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Would welcome it if there was a variety of prices and types of clothing, a friend and I went into ED in search of a raincoat for her 2 year old and could not find one under ?25, so we traipsed into Peckham and purchased one for ?5 from woolworths. However, if you want a nice dress for an occasion then Pratridges et al are the ones. Soup dragon have a range of products and prices and do better for it I think.
Lordship lane have all the babywear,new mother,baby toddler and infant products.Opening another childrens shop will not add anything new Casper,we dont need any more.Dont forget there is also the charity shop and secondhand shop that sells childrens clothes as well,not to mention the babywear and childrens clothes shop in Melbourne grove.

Casper I'm sure you're taking this all with the pinch of salt it deserves! :))


What we guys on this site want is pretty much of a muchness, we're a self-selecting research pool and as such have no relevance. We are not a straw poll of the 'average customer'.


There's only one way to work out the possible market for your shop, and that's to settle yourself outside one of the many competitors and count the customers and the conversion rate. Do it on weekdays and weekends.


Apply these figures to your own business plan, compare it with your fixed and variable costs and see if it comes out up or down.


I really don't see that many customers in the kids shops. It would be difficult to persuade me that an additional shop is going to deliver the necessary profits to meet your dream!


More successful projects seem to revolve around either small volumes of higher margin nick-nacks (otherwise known as 'expensive tat' on this site ;-)) or massive volumes of fashionably expensive lower margin goods (otherwise known as poncey restaurants instead of old fashioned boozers).

Erm.. that's a question!


Currently I do start-ups and turnarounds for media companies; sometimes for my own company, and sometimes for the big corporates. That's why I was in China last year.


I've done a few SME business plans, and also done a reasonable amount of sitting on my bum. ;-)


The usual thing I recommend is not to follow a fashion or go on a hunch, but to do the numbers first!

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