HOW TO TAKE YOUR BUSINESS TO A SUMMER EVENT

Summer brings the (hopefully) good weather and plenty of events at which you can hire a stall to showcase your retail business’ wares. Depending on where you are, there may be a sudden influx of craft fairs and flower shows popping up. Many of these will offer stall space to local businesses and this can be a great opportunity to meet new customers.

We have put together a brief overview of the various things to consider if you’re taking your retail or crafting business to a local event, including some health and safety guidelines and insurance conditions that many event organisers require from stall holders.

Ahead of time

Lots of event organisers have a minimum required public liability limit in their contracts. It’s important to check with the event organisers whether this is required. Even if it isn’t, public liability cover is important as it protects your business against any claims made against your for injury or damage to a third party. As well as public liability, which covers incidents on or around your stall, you may need products liability which covers you against claims regarding your products.

If you have employees you are legally obligated to hold employers liability cover for them, even if they’ve only been hired on a temporary basis (i.e. to help out at a summer fair or to cover you while you’re away).

Are you driving yourself and your stock to the event? Your private motor policy may not cover using your vehicle for work, so check your policy documents or confirm with your insurer whether you need additional cover.

Last, but certainly not least you should make sure that your goods are covered both in transit and on-site. This way, if anything happens to your goods you can recover the loss.

On the day

If you have a health and safety checklist, make sure you use it and document what measures you’re taking to ensure everyone is safe on the day. For most market/craft fair stalls the main risks are likely to be trip hazards, theft and carrying of heavy loads.

When you’re setting up, make sure you minimise risk to yourself, staff and customers by ensuring nothing is left on the floor around your stall. If there’s nowhere to store your supplies safely, consider using space under your stall or behind your stall in a neat pile, to reduce the risk of someone tripping.

During the event, make sure staff get regular breaks or have somewhere to sit if need be; standing up all day can be exhausting. It’s also a good idea to ensure there is bottled water for yourself and staff as these events can get quite hot whether you’re outside or inside.

To reduce the likelihood of theft, make sure any cash isn’t too obvious or left out in the open. There are a variety of lockboxes on the market and you can reduce the risk even further by relying on card payments – there are lots of mobile card payment systems that can be used at events like these.

Hopefully you’re able to make the most of summer events and the above is useful to you! If you’d like to discuss your insurance requirements please do give us a call Monday-Friday from 9am-5.30pm excluding bank holidays.