College students became entrepreneurs for the day when they took over stalls at Widnes Market.
The Market hosted a student trading and marketing day in conjunction with Riverside College and Cronton Sixth Form College, when Business Studies students learned the tricks of the market trade and put their business skills into practice.
As part of a launch event to highlight the reopening of Thursday market trading, students were invited to work alongside existing traders on the outdoor market, using their initiative to come up with a product or service to sell.
They had to work in teams to arrange their product presentation, business practices and sales patter. Existing traders gave some tips and tricks and even bought some of the students’ goods!
The Mayor of Halton, Cllr Christopher Rowe, was joined by Ian Bashford of the Widnes Market Management Team as they were presented with marketing projects for a mock overhaul of Widnes Market. Both projects were judged for ‘stall of the day’ and ‘best marketing project’, with the winning teams taking a trophy, certificate and market vouchers.
Ian says: “The event was a great success due to the money raised, the atmosphere and the experience for the students – we are already discussing it being a continuing event for next year.”
Programme Area Leader for Business at both colleges, Bryan Doyle, said: “This was a great experience for our students and gave them the opportunity to put what they had learned in the classroom into practice in a real business environment.
“Vocational courses should give students real-life experience of how their subjects are applied in real situations and for business students. I can think of nothing better to teach entrepreneurship than getting them to trade in our fantastic and famous market for a day and to deliver professional quality marketing plans to the management team and our Mayor. It was great to see all of our students developing valuable skills and for all the stalls turn a healthy profit too!”
All work undertaken by the students on the day will add to their coursework marks for the year and may even have given them the bug for market trading in the future!
