Rise of Night Market in Polangui Albay: An Advantage to SMEs

Abstract

Night market is one of the exciting trends in Polangui’s food system. It showcases the local culture and promotes the local food of the town. It also acts as an alternative for small medium business owners to sell their goods daily. It is considered as business incubators for the aspiring entrepreneurs since it only needs a small amount of capital to the start the business. There are five variables studied namely: vendor’s profile and characteristics, customers profile and characteristics, level of support from the Local Government Units (LGUs), competition among vendors, and the type of products and their prices. This paper identifies the advantages of the night market to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the town of Polangui. This research could also help to encourage other local business owners to use this as a platform to be successful in the business. It could be a great advantage to the vendors if they will join the night market in order for the locals and other people coming from neighborhood municipalities to taste the type of food and services that they offer and it may provide a benchmark for future studies. This exploratory study described the prospect of the night markets in the business environment and also explore the main intention to highlight the advantages of the night market activities to SMEs as the researcher adopted qualitative research approach. Overall results revealed that there are five contributing factors that benefit the entrepreneurs in the rise of night markets in Polangui, Albay that may help in attracting more customers to visit the night markets regularly namely: income generation, gaining confidence among the vendors, gain additional knowledge/skills through seminars, training's attended and workshops helping LGU promote tourism and collect taxes, and overall economic growth.