Last week’s regular web-update email to QVM
traders included praise of the soccer crowds that visited Melbourne for a match
on 24th July. They were here to watch the stars of the world game, stars
like Ronaldo, show off their talents. The impact of the huge crowd of visitors
to Melbourne was felt across our market.
This week was different – I got doughnuts.
Let me explain. I am partial to the odd doughnut, particularly if they come
from the American Doughnuts bus on Queen St. My kids used to love them 30 years
ago and I still indulge although only rarely these days because usually I am
too busy on a trading day to wait in a queue for those freshly made delights.
On Saturday morning my wife came back to
the stall with a bag of doughnuts from the bus. This was a special treat and I
inquired how it came about. She said she was walking past the bus (at around
10:00am) and there was no queue. Not one solitary customer was waiting at the
serving window. So she figured she couldn’t pass up a rare opportunity. That
was my gain and I suspect the sign of a bad sales day for the doughnut bus.
Retailing can be very fickle particularly
when you are relying on the number of visitors to our city as most of our
top-end traders do. Perhaps the exhaustive list of kpi’s (key performance
indicators) for our market could be replaced with one simple question - how
many customers were waiting at the doughnut bus?
Greg Smith – QVMAC Trader Representative.
COMMENTS:
05/08/2015 20:10:08 KPI's "Sometimes we lose sight of reality with the jargon and terminology of today's business world when the simple things are right in front of us.
We have watched the trade in the market ebb and flow over many years as have most traders and adjust our trading accordingly. Experience is the key KPI." Karl ADK (American Doughnut Kitchen)