INCREASINGLY, MORE BUSINESSES ARE BEING OPERATED FROM HOME, BUT WHY?

In recent years more and more people have considered business ownership in preference to working for other people and many have acted on this desire. At the same time there has been a growing trend in the appeal of working on a flexi-hours basis and, despite the negative publicity given to zero-hours contracts, there are thousands of people for whom this is a very attractive proposition – working when it suits them. Another trend which has been growing in popularity is ‘working from home’ and for those people seeking to run their own businesses and wanting to work flexibly this is the chosen route.Home based businesses basically fall into two categories – those which are operated from home (as the business base) and those operated at home. The second category is, of course, by no means a modern day phenomenon. There has been a fair number of traditional businesses operated this way – farms, public houses, guest houses, shops, etc. but today the range is much broader.It is understood that there are approximately 2.9m home based businesses in the U.K. – equivalent to nearly 60% of all U.K. small business enterprise! They contribute circa £300bn to the U.K. economy each year and home-based entrepreneurs currently contribute £1 out of every £11 of turnover generated by U.K. Ltd. Since 2010 the number of home-based businesses in the U.K. has increased by some 500,000 and around 1.1m such businesses have been trading for over 20 years.As we all know, Britain’s population is growing rapidly and is expected to add a further 9m by 2060. The growing number of immigrants and increasing numbers of people either in or seeking work is likely to keep wages in check. Consequently, more people will look for opportunities to improve their incomes and as a result even greater numbers will decide on business ownership as their way forward.In business small can certainly be beautiful, whilst operating a home-based business has a number of additional attractions. A mixture of these two is seen by many as being the ideal scenario. Small, home-based businesses benefit from having much lower overheads and many do not require staff or money to be tied up in stock. Consequently, they can be extremely profitable yet also satisfy that which motivates and inspires entrepreneurs to go it alone – freedom, passion and the ability to live life in their own way.It is not by chance that we, at Beardsley Theobalds, have always handled sales of home-based businesses but this ‘sector’ has become increasingly more important. Consequently, such businesses now form a relatively significant percentage of our portfolio of businesses for sale and, based on the aforementioned reasons, this will almost certainly continue to be the case.If you are interested in acquiring a profitable, going concern business which you can operate from your home please do contact us. You may be surprised at the range of opportunities becoming available and for many of these businesses specific experience or expertise is not essential. So, what are you waiting for?Roger MundyManaging DirectorBeardsley Theobalds