A MOTHER and daughter duo are hoping to create a platform for up-and-coming traders with their new artisan markets hosted in different venues across Warrington.
Diane and Caitlin Reynolds know the highs and lows of being a trader, having ran their own stalls for years prior to starting up their own markets company - D&D Artisan Markets.
The Great Sankey pair recently started the business, swapping their cakes and jewellery stalls for a greater operation of organising the actual markets themselves.
“We have done these stalls for the last four years all over the north west,” Caitlin said. “We want to take it a step further and create a business that encompasses the trader.”
The 26-year-old explained how a ‘high volume of traders’ flock to the same markets in the hope of selling their hand-made goods, to find the market is flooded with the same sort of traders – meaning competition is high.
“The highs and lows of markets are incredible. You would go to a market and walk away from it with this incredible high sometimes, but other times it would be the opposite,” she added.
Co-owner of D&D Artisan Markets, Diane, 56, explained that having this knowledge and seeing how competition has risen and how a lot of markets work in the favour of the regular stalls and not newcomers, made the pair decide to start the business with a new target market.
“We want to encourage new traders to come to the markets we organise. We want to make it a friendly community for new traders,” she said.
“We found after Covid that people were not shopping on the high street anymore, so we have to encourage people to come back and support small businesses again,” Diane said.
The pair hosted their first official markets back in December last year – one at the Chapelford Farm pub and another at Seven Woods in Westbrook.
And both markets were said to be ‘successes’ with plenty of traders and customers in attendance.
Speaking on working as a mother and daughter team, Caitlin said: “We are both very strong people with strong ideas. My mum has always been a businesswoman.
“She owned three companies at the same time around 2004 to 2008 so she has always been motivated and had a lot of initiative.
“Were as I have the technology knowledge in terms of social media and that side of things.
“We have around 40 years of experience between us.”
Diane said the business is family orientated and she wants this to be mirrored in their approach to the markets and traders.
“We want it to be a community. Our whole family is involved and that is how we want to treat our traders too.
“We want to give people a chance and you find lovely people along the way who have given up jobs to be there. We want to give them a chance.”
The next market is set to be at Chapelford Farm on April 13.
To get involved and be part of the D&D Artisan Markets, get in touch on the Facebook page and Instagram.
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