Employment

I immigrated to Canada early this year. I found that it was very difficult to find a job here in PEI since my English is not good enough to communicate smoothly with local people. But I found a business opportunity here. Fashion clothes are very expensive and rare on the island. Furthermore, I have many fashion clothing resources in China. So I decided to set up a small business here to earn money myself. Here I will talk about the main steps of setting up a business in Canada.

The first step I took was doing a market survey. I surveyed almost every town on the island, and walked into every fashion shop I saw. I got information about the styles and prices of the clothes sold here, and then I figured out the popular styles and the most acceptable price range. With this information, I ordered the first batch of clothes from China.

The second step I took was registering the company. I did it myself. I found that it was very convenient to do it on the Internet. I got some useful articles from the Internet which guided me step by step. And during this step I consulted my accountant who really gave me some useful advice.

After I successfully set up my company, the next step I took was setting up my bank account and putting in the money. This step is very simple and every bank can do it. I took the registration information for my company to the bank manager. I compared the policies offered by different banks and found that there were small differences between them. Finally, I chose TD Bank, because it has a branch near my store. It is convenient for me to do my banking there.

The last step I took was finding the location and my staff. It was complicated to find a perfect location. There are several factors that must be considered. The first factor is location. This is the most important one. It can influence sales very much. The second one is size. It depends on the business. Different businesses have different needs. The last one is price. This also depends on the scale of the business. I chose an 800 square foot place near a restaurant in the centre of downtown. As for the staff, I tried several ways. The first one was talking to the local people. They are more familiar with the area. The second one I took was searching on the Internet. There are some useful websites like “job bank”. They are really convenient and effective.

My small business has been running for about six months. To conclude, I feel it is very convenient and interesting to set up a business in Canada.