Weekend Markets, who doesn’t love them? An increasingly popular feature in most urban areas, they can range from farmers and organic markets to open-air ‘chesa nyama’ like markets with all sorts of aromatic African cuisine and creative arts.
A fresh way to spend your Saturday mornings, markets have evolved from being just a place where “buyers and sellers meet” to an easy and inexpensive platform for emerging entrepreneurs to showcase their products and services while connecting, forging partnerships and networking their specialty face-to-face.
With new markets being opened every other day however, it’s become a bit hard to keep up. While most people go to markets that speak to their lifestyle, it has become harder to niche yourself as an emerging entrepreneur thus deciding what market suits your customer becomes a crucial step in ones market strategy.
To further understand this phenomenon and it’s impact to modern business, we visited BrownSense Market in Johannesburg, launched in January 2015 with a focus on the love of local food and crafts. We were obviously drawn to this particular market as it boasts a platform that supports and endorses black business owners only. It’s main goal is to empower and support black entrepreneurs by offering a space where they can become vendors and exhibit or sell their products to the public.

On the 18th of June 2016, BrownSense hosted its first winter market for the year at Ellis House Art Studios in Doorsfontein. Presented over twenty various vendors from coffee makers, to hair and beauty product manufactures, publishers, wine makers, fashion & jewelry designers and more, it was a warmly Ubuntu experience.
First on our radar at the culturally exploring market, was Thabiso Mahlape a publisher at Blackbird Books. We spoke to her about her company and how exhibiting at the market has impacted her business.
“Blackbird books was launched last year August and we only publish black writers and black narratives; our focus and joy is with debut writers’’- she said
With books such as Sweet Medicine by Panashe Chigumadzi andThe Pavement Bookworm by Philani Dladla as star-raters, Mahlane is excited to find and publish writers who narrate new and rare stories.
“If you go into business now, you should try and find things that make a societal impact and so for me its about choosing narratives that allow black people to begin to explain themselves to themselves within the spaces that we find ourselves in”- she added.

We then met Ofentse Maluleke of TAJI, manufacturer of organic homegrown Shea butter beauty and hair products accompanied by her book An African Print Doek, which represents the importance of protecting your crown of glory with natural products that actually enrich your hair with the nutrients it needs.
“My brand is more centered around regaining a royal sense of being an African” said Maluleke
Other exhibitors on the day included brands such as Kofi-Africa, Hop Solutions, Magna Carta Wines, Nubian Nature, Baba Les Chili, Oamobu Naturals, Hola Funk, Pastry Princess, Couture Cakes by Charlotte, Khwin B Collections, NamNan Creations, The House of Diva and more even more stalls than we could get to.
Aside from a successfully curated space; we found that even your average attendee had something to share, be it networking (because everyone knows someone right?) to new business partnerships forming through client interest.
Speaking about the initiative, Mzuzukile Soni, founder of BrownSense highlighted that “The purpose of BrownSense is to create a system where we empower ourselves and each other through a holistic approach; doing business with each other is just one way. However there is a lot more to it and a part of it is just exploring different ways of finding ways to sustain ourselves, for example, getting to a point where we start growing our own vegetables. It is not purely about making money”.

BrownSense has over 7 000 active members and continues to inspire more entrepreneurs to engage, share and market their businesses on the platforms.
The next BrownSense Market (JHB) is scheduled for 31st July 2016 and if you’d like to participate, you can follow the Facebook page BrownSense or contact Mzuzukile Soni on 0613822005 or mzuzukile@icloud.com
Facebook: BrownSense Market
Twitter : @brownsensmarket
This article was originally published on https://theblackbarbieblog.wordpress.com by Jabu Sopete