The former Crafters Emporium in Oxford was flooded out business owners have revealed.

The Crafters Emporium switched from the High Street to Cornmarket Street in June.

It provides a base for more than 100 different traders, and displays handmade crafts, jewellery, cards, paintings and artisan gifts.

READ MORE: Small businesses in Oxford are 'being taken for granted'

Natasha Martell opened the business following a spell for the business as a pop-up in the Clarendon Centre.

Earlier this month she posted a statement that the move from the High Street has been a "great success". 

She said: "The new shop has been a great success so far for our crafters, so thank you."

Now she has revealed that the High Street unit, which opened in the former Whistles store in 2021, had been hit by repeated problems.

(Image: Andy Ffrench) She said: "We moved from High Street because of the awful quarterly rent we had to pay in advance leaving us out of pocket during that time.

"High Street was great to us for three years but with many issues such as no working air conditioning and leak issues from upstairs - which led to our crafters products being destroyed we had no choice to find a new place."

Ms Martell added: "Along with these general issues we also found High Street to be dying with footfall - our best year was 2023 but 2024 seemed lacking even with more crafters we struggled with the increases in bills to make it worthwhile.

"A lot of our crafters sales dropped by over 20 per cent compared to the previous year and we struggled to find new makers, and makers wanting to stay."

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At the beginning of the year the emporium owners started looking for new premises and found the Cornmarket Street unit, which has proved a resounding  success.

Ms Martell said the rent was more affordable and paid on a monthly basis.

(Image: Crafters Emporium) She added: "Since opening, we have seen record figures, for a property half the size we have jumped by nearly 20 per cent compared to July 2023 in High Street.

"We have many customers say that they had not known we even existed in Oxford let alone being in High Street for three years.

"The support we have received has many amazing, the crafters are being seen better and doing better overall (some by over 50 per cent).

"We do believe being that it is a smaller property you can see everything the first or second time around, whereas High street you couldn’t, many of the crafters in the back of the shop just did not get any sales and we know they are happier in Cornmarket."

Ms Martell said for the first time there is now a waiting list of crafters wanting to be based there.

"I think this truly shows the success of Cornmarket," she added.

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About the author 

Andy is the Trade and Tourism reporter for the Oxford Mail and you can sign up to his newsletters for free here. 

He joined the team more than 20 years ago and he covers community news across Oxfordshire.

His Trade and Tourism newsletter is released every Saturday morning. 

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