Case Study : Sweet Memories - Janice Prest

After a lot of thought and some market research Janice decided to start up an old fashioned sweet shop, bringing back old favourites such as ‘Rosy Apples’ and ‘Soor Plooms’ with support from her Be Enterprising start-up coach, Noel Cowley, ‘Sweet Memories’ was born, a real old time sweet shop on Station Road in Seaham. 

The inside of the shop is bright and airy with tantalising displays of colourful sweets from floor to ceiling, Janice’s husband and father in law handcrafted all of the shop fittings and friends and family helped to decorate.  The business is quickly becoming part of the community and Janice relishes this, knowing many of her customers by name and preference but always keen to give them the opportunity to try something new whilst they wait.  Janice commented ‘One of my customers, a local gentleman walks round every day after dinner to buy his daily ice cream, its lovely to have such strong links with the community so quickly’.  Janice also benefits from being located close to a local school and is amazed by her younger customers favourites with many coming back again and again for ‘Black Bullets’ or ‘Chewing Nuts’. 

In order to expand her product range Janice now creates elaborate gift boxes of sweets, wedding favours and has added a small party decoration arm to the business with a wide variety of helium balloons on offer.  Much of the trade on this side of the business is coming from customer recommendations helping to keep promotional costs low and demonstrates the quality of her work. 

Noel Cowley worked with Janice to write a business plan and look at cash flow forecasting for the business over the coming years, Janice commented ‘Noel helped me get all my ideas down on paper and produce a business plan which was used to obtain the start-up finance I needed, this gave me the confidence to get started.  I’m very happy to be working for myself and not stuck behind a desk working for someone else.’  Some grant funding from the Be Enterprising programme helped with start up costs and Noel will be on hand to help as needed with advice as Janice’s business grows.  Noel also put Janice in contact with Graham Tinkler, Retail Adviser for East Durham Business Service where she has been awarded further funding to assist in the refurbishment of her shop front, for signage, a security shutter and a new awning.