Anyone planned to start a business during a gap year?

Depends what sort of business...

but in my opinion this is pretty much the worst time to be starting one.

yes im on a gap year too, i work at the moment which is a good wage. Its not really a business im planning on building a house and then renting it out during this year but will break into my first year of university. I've also started an ebay business which makes about 80 pound a week so far. I'd love to start a business in 2010 just into property at the moment.

Daddy won the lottery has he?! No student is ever going to get a big enough loan to afford a house, particually at the present time!

Tis the best time!! Any business which can establish itself during a recession will get very strong during the upturn. Only problem is this time round that credit will be hard to come by, usually credit is cheap and easy during recessions. Stupid Gordon Brown.

The only businesses which stand a chance at establishing themselves right now will be ones that can provide cheap and almost revolutionary products or ideas.

Not at all, any efficent business will survive. Things have been very easy in the last 10 years, a good recession will cut alot of the crap from the Uk economy. Any given business competes on cost or product differentiation, or more commonly, a mix of the two. There is no reason why some business cant start producing a product more cheaply than anyone else and survive, or produce a slightly better product than other companies and survive. It doesnt need to be revolutionary, or dirt cheap, just "better" or "cheaper."

Basic economics: Recession = fall in demand for goods and services.
Increase in demand for inferior goods, i.e MUST be cheap and necessary.

Where are inferior goods within the UK generally produced and manufactured? Overseas. Look at how much the pound is worth...

Also, the market for inferior goods is now, already, overwhelmingly crowded.

If you think it's so easy to start a business right now then I suggest you try. As i've stated, I run my own business and during past few months the overwhelming pessimism from our retailers is blindingly obvious.

Ive spent the last few days writing a uni essay on competitive advantage, and fully understand basic economics, thank you. The pound is worth **** all, meaning UK products are comparitivly cheaper than forign imports. Thus helping demand for home grown goods and services. When you say "inferior" I think you mean Giffen goods, ie basic commodities and nessesities. Demand pre-Xmas was down 3%, according to retailers. A big dip - yes, a dip worthy of all the media hype - no. The only business running into problems are those servicing the higher end of the market, "eco-companies", organic products, etc etc, where consumers pay a higher price on their concience, rather than rational thinking, or those companies which are so highly geared as to need constant credit to stay in business, yet which are, and have been for a while bankrupt. Woolies was bankrupt months if not years ago, but was kept alive by cheap credit and bad credit refrecing agencies, thus enabling them to become more highly geared than they already were.

If you have capital to start a business now, and a decent idea, then you have the makings of a strong venture. When the good times come back - and they will - business' created during a recession tend to be the largest, strongest and most profitable. The crashes of the 30s and 70s saw the created of nearly all our large "super companies" eg Exxon Mobile.

If your retailers are being pessamistic then they evidently havent much faith in either the product, or their ability to sell it. Anyone can sell anything during a boom time, recessions are the economies way of reducing waste and inefficiencies.