Night Market
Impacting On Day Market – A common theme from many traders this week is that
Thursday day trade has been killed by the night market. The philosophy is that
tourists who visit the night market won’t visit on Thursdays. Other traders are questioning
whether there is a direct link or are we just identifying a general downturn in
day trade.
September
Doldrums – one trader point out that September is normally one of his worst
trading months of the year even though there is plenty of tourist activity
around football finals. A sales survey done by traders a few years ago
confirmed that February and September were the quietest months of the year in
the top end.
Empty E Shed - traders thought that the North side of E Shed between the top walkway and Peel St. had been purposely cleared on Friday, but no, it was just an unfortunate coincidence that all traders took the day off.
A Trader
wrote to Victraders recently complaining about the confusing state of rent
accounts and apparent over-charging on his account. His Category Manager was
alerted and the matter cleared up to the Trader’s satisfaction but he points
out that a lot of the frustration around rent accounts would be overcome if
they were like utility accounts – in other words issued after the commercial
activity had occurred instead of before. We do have a lot of confusing elements
in our accounts – casual trading, leave, box hire penalties and so on.
Indisputable
Proof That Traders Are Doing It Tough – this trader took time out to darn his
own socks during trading on Friday. There are a number of important
implications to this – We hope he didn’t remove his sock in front of customers –
he definitely needs sewing lessons – we are a traditional market and perhaps it
is time that Jeff, Bruce, and our other sock sellers introduced a repair service.
Learning
From Football – a trader has suggested that the Collingwood Football Clubs
response to future development might have application in the retail industry - "Buckley's reappointment… comes after a 'forensic' review that
concluded that sacking the coach would be an exercise in scapegoating. “...the easiest decision in the last
couple of days would have been to sack the coach, the hard decision is to look
within and work within and work through as a whole club.” "Change
doesn't necessarily mean sack this person sack that person, it could be and it
will be, different structuring, resource an area better that we haven't
resourced before…”
Trader Dispute - a minor altercation occurred this week when one trader placed his boxes in the aisle and effectively blocked customer movement. It was after closing time but our complainant still had a crowd at his stall. Keeping storage boxes on your side of the aisle and allowing customer movement for others would seem to be the neighbourly thing to do.
Have Your Say - click here.