Bellville Trade Market gives small businesses a boost
Nine small businesses now have exposure to the Bellville CBD at a market building, which is part of a project to encourage entrepreneurship.
Established by UWC’s Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and a private company, the Trade Market “trading Incubator”, on the corner of Bill Bezuidenhout Avenue and Strand Road, was formally opened Tuesday October 8.
“The reason for the set-up of the incubator is to bring in township businesses who are struggling to get to customers in the CBD and to connect them with customers outside of the township,” said Abraham Oliver, the director of the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
The entrepreneurs would get monthly mentoring to help them boost their businesses and they would be able to use UWC’s new business training facility in Parow (“UWC unveils new business training facility,” October 8), he said.
“We build the entrepreneur's confidence to network, the confidence to believe in oneself, the entrepreneur's confidence to stand on a stage and present his/her business successfully. And so that is the coaching part. The coaches and the mentors will be supplied by the university,” he said.
The entrepreneurs pay R50 a square metre for shops that are between 10m² to 12m².
There is an internet cafe, a bed manufacturer, a nuts-and-biltong business and others selling fashion accessories, clothing, and cleaning products.
Fatima Davids, the director of CorpChem, which produces cleaning products and chemicals, said she started her business in 2016 in Johannesburg and came to Cape Town in 2017.
They manufactured more than 30 chemicals and products used for cleaning.
“We cater for different sectors in the industry. So whether it be automotive like your degreasers, engine cleaners, tyre cleaners, dashboard cleaners, rim cleaners, we do that.
“We supply to hospitals and schools the disinfectants, sanitisers and the normal cleaning materials as well,” she said.
Lisakhanya Gelekeja, a sale manager at Comfort Support, said they were grateful for the space as his father, Siphiwo, had been selling beds for more than 20 years from their house in Belhar.
He said his father manufactured the beds in Gordon’s Bay.
Paul Hanratty, the chief executive of the company that owns the building and has now refurbished it and provided it to UWC rent free, said it had once been used as a post office.
