A LevelBusinessEdexcelExam Questions1. Marketing & People1.5 Entrepreneurs & Leaders

Entrepreneurs & Leaders (Edexcel A Level Business): Exam Questions

Exam code: 9BS0

3 hours24 questions

Easy

Medium

Hard

4 marks

Read the following extracts (A to C) (opens in a new tab) before answering

Explain one business objective Tesco might be aiming to achieve by launching its Jack’s stores

How did you do?

Was this exam question helpful?

10 marks

Extract A
Trust Pilot customer reviews of Timpson
(Source: adapted from https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.timpson.co.uk)

Extract B
Timpson Ltd
Timpson was established in 1865 by John Timpson. The business repairs shoes, cuts keys, repairs mobile phones, and repairs watches. Timpson offers a wide range of while-you-wait services on the High Street or in supermarkets. The Group continues to expand by opening new stores, mostly in supermarket car parks.
Timpson became a private limited company in 1960.
(Source: adapted from https://www.timpson.co.uk/about-timpson)

Extract C
Interview with James Timpson – Timpson’s chairman 2024
“I believe that if a business invests in colleagues, it can succeed. If you sat in one of our board meetings you’d hear a lot about our colleagues’ happiness. We call this ‘upside down’ management. The more money we invest in our culture of kindness, the better the business performs. Colleagues need to stick to our only two rules: put the money in the till and look the part.
Many businesses don’t realise that their most valuable asset isn’t the stock on the shelves, it’s the loyalty and passion of their colleagues. In other businesses, when sales fall, directors usually demand that costs are cut, and training ignored. However, this can lead to higher sickness, low morale and even strikes.
We paid for a garden play area for an employee’s grandchildren, and a family facing major health issues went to Disneyland Paris.
Timpson is one of the largest employers of ex-offenders in the UK. Approximately 10% of our workforce have criminal convictions. All ex-offenders we recruit are risk-assessed and provide us with full disclosure during interview. Those we recruit are extremely loyal, productive, and hardworking.”
(Source: adapted from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/05/burntout-britain-workers-management-strike-sick and https://www.timpson-group. co.uk/timpson-foundation/ex-offenders/

Extract D
Johnsons dry cleaners
Johnsons is a national professional clothes cleaning business, competing with local dry cleaners. It has over 200 stores throughout the UK and offers a dry-cleaning service for a range of items, such as suits, bridalwear, and duvets. Johnsons combines first-class customer care with expert advice on fabrics and textiles.
Johnsons typically employs 2-3 employees in its branches and currently the only training they receive is one day’s induction covering serving customers, till usage and cleaning services offered in that branch.
More specialist items are sent to Johnsons Excellence Centre in Rugby. The textile technicians there have unparalleled levels of expertise. Johnsons’ services combine advanced cleaning technology with traditional methods to care for specific textiles, such as wedding dresses. It also specialises in handbags, and motorcycle leathers.
(Source: adapted from https://www.timpson-group.co.uk/group-companies/johnsons/)

Assess the likely consequences of Timpson Ltd continuing to operate as a private limited company

How did you do?

Was this exam question helpful?

8 marks

Extract A
Vinted Ltd: A growing clothing business
Vinted Ltd was founded in Lithuania in 2008 by Milda Mitkute and Justas Janauskas, who remain major shareholders. It operates across Europe and the USA, and recently raised €250m in share capital to help fund expansion into new markets.
Vinted currently has 45 million users who buy and sell clothes on its platform. Sellers pay no fees until the items are sold and then Vinted receives a percentage of the selling price.
Vinted utilises several trends, such as affordable fashion, and the use of online channels. Vinted is part of the circular economy which describes how goods, such as clothing, are recycled and re-sold, helping to prolong usage in a sustainable way.
In the future Vinted plans to make it easier for people to sell goods on the platform for charity. In the UK, charity shops are a significant channel for used goods, where people donate clothes to help organisations such as the British Heart Foundation, which sell them in physical stores to raise funds. Vinted is working to give sellers the option to sell for a charity of their choice.
(Source: adapted from techcrunch.com)

Extract B
Global fashion market trends in 2023
The rise of resale clothing
The secondhand clothing market will grow three times faster than the global clothing market overall.
Technology and online marketplaces are driving this trend, with 70% of customers saying it’s easier now to shop secondhand than it was five years ago. With customer incomes squeezed, resale helps with affordability.
Sustainability
Fast-fashion brands are sometimes criticised for the methods they use to manufacture and produce clothing, involving long global supply chains. 42% of global customers prefer to purchase eco-friendly and sustainable products. 3
Brick-and-mortar
22% of online returns are because products look different in reality when received by the customer. This expense is driving many fashion brands back into traditional retail.
Customers want both online and offline sales channels: 50% of customers are likely to look at a product online and buy it in a physical store; 50% say they do the opposite: viewing products in-store and buying them online.
(Source: adapted from https://www.shopify.com/uk/enterprise/ecommerce-fashion-industry)

Extract C
Clothes manufacturing in China
(Source: adapted from OEC)
Previously clothing brands were attracted to China by a large labour force, low labour costs, clothing manufacturing technology, and high product quality. Factories concentrated in coastal port cities, also help with transportation. Fast-fashion brand Shein has its base in China.
Mango’s chief executive, Toni Ruiz, said he was considering buying less from China. “What we’re looking at is the extent to which all this global sourcing, developed over many years, might become more local,” he said.
According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, the average factory wage doubled between 2013 and 2021. Products manufactured in China are not as competitive once shipping and transport costs are taken into account. An increasingly important consideration for retailers is traceability in the supply chain after years of widely reported labour abuses in China.
Many clothing brands are moving production to Turkey, which has a customs agreement with the European Union. Turkey also has a free trade agreement with the UK. Turkey has easy access to raw materials, such as cotton, as well as having a skilled workforce protected by strong labour laws. Hugo Boss and Zara already use Turkey as a production location.
(Source: adapted from https://www.ft.com/content/0e23cf24- ed9c-4a0a-916c-7059d3795b93)

Assess two financial consequences of Vinted operating as a private limited company

How did you do?

Was this exam question helpful?

8 marks

Extract D
The End of the Road festival
The End of the Road festival is an annual music festival in England which focuses on independent rock and folk music.
Every time its founder, Simon Taffe, went to a music festival, he thought: “I could do this.” He went home and spent two weeks doing research, calling security firms and portable toilet companies.
The venues Simon contacted all said they wouldn’t let him hold a festival. The only place agreed was the village of Larmer Tree on the border of Wiltshire and Dorset.
The first End of the Road festival was in September 2006 and cost £150,000. He sold his house to cover some of the cost, and the rest came from loans. In April of 2006, ticket sales were slow; no matter how much was put into advertising, sales did not grow. Simon realised then that he was going to lose a lot of money. He hired a van and drove around the country, dropping leaflets at any festival he could find.
The first festival made a loss of £35,000. Simon was 25 and still had his decorating business. The second year, the festival made a loss of £50,000. By the fourth year, the festival had just about become profitable.
In 2024, 15,000 people attended the End of the Road festival set in fields, woodland and Victorian gardens and had six stages.
(Source: adapted from https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/ aug/21/a-moment-that-changed-me-drunken-idea-start-music-festivalsold-my-house and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_of_the_Road_ Festival#Line-ups and https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/ article/2024/sep/01/music-festivals-egalitarianism-end-of-the-road)

Extract E
End of the Road festival – environmental and charity initiatives
FreeFill is a reusable Cup Scheme which charges festivalgoers £1 per cup to reduce single-use plastic consumption. The reusable aspect of this scheme has also helped End of The Road in reducing recyclable waste. The End of The Road donates some of its income to fund various clean water projects across the globe.
The End of the Road festival promotes War Child, a charity which aims to secure a safe future for every child affected by war, and supports it financially. War Child works with local communities and governments to help protect and educate children and support them to heal and learn. (Source: adapted from https://endoftheroadfestival.com/environmental-initiatives/)

Extract F
UK music festivals
The Leeds and Reading festivals attract almost 200 000 fans between them. Smaller UK festivals sell between 5 000 and 20 000 tickets, and have experienced many problems including competition, and rising costs.
192 out of 600 operating in 2019 have closed. The Secret Garden Party in Cambridgeshire closed and symbolically burned down its main stage at the end of July 2024. Founder Freddie Fellowes said: “It’s no longer sustainable for independents to run festivals. The difficulty is that if you put your ticket price out early, you commit to a price and a budget. That is a huge risk. Profit Margins are incredibly tight.”
However, The Green Man festival, in south Wales, sold out in just two hours in 2025, and the Lake District’s Kendal Calling has seen record ticket sales for August 2025. A general boom in summer events indicates that consumers are willing to spend money on memorable experiences.
Sponsorship is also important to festivals. Ticket prices would need to increase without it. Oxfordshire’s Wilderness festival is sponsored by carmaker Audi. (Source: adapted from https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/aug/25/ smaller-uk-music-festivals-struggle-to-be-heard-in-crowded-market)

Extract G
Selected festival prices and capacities
(Source: adapted from various festival websites)

Assess two entrepreneurial motives that Simon Taffe might have had when setting up the End of the Road festival

How did you do?

Was this exam question helpful?