Report Card On Birthday Bash

The final day of the Birthday Bash weekend isn’t yet over so it is a bit early to draw conclusions, but let’s start the discussion anyway.

What was your experience over the 140^th Birthday Celebration weekend and did it meet your expectations?

Let’s say upfront that a quick straw poll late Sunday of about 6 traders across aisles C-M identified good crowds but poor sales. The verdict was pretty universal – the event attracted crowds but they didn’t come to buy and had little impact on trader revenues.

Should we expect more from this type of event? Is it enough that we get crowds here, the opportunity to engage, and potential sales down the track? Are we just wasting our time on locals altogether in the Upper Market? Presumably traders selling essentials like socks and also the food vendors would have done ok. Did any traders get reactions from customers? We heard of one customer saying the normal food and cultural festivals on Queen St. had more activities than they saw this weekend.

Any comments or thoughts, please click on Have Your Say below.

Have Your Say – click here.

30/04/2018 07:01:40      Sunday event          "It has become very obvious that an event may bring large crowds into the qvm but that does not seem to bring dollars into our pockets. It would seem that very few stall holders  had any success bar tue this weekend very disappointing. Do better on non hyped up days your comments please."
Perhaps two common complaints can be put to bed this weekend - 
1. "They just need to bring us more people."
2. "They don't advertise us enough."
The trading issue in the Upper Market is clearly much more complex than either of these complaints suggest. We had a big crowd and (speaking generally) it did nothing for business. Secondly, the advertising across social media was huge. We could have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on more traditional advertising (TV, radio, newspapers) but would the crowd have been much bigger? The crowd was here but that didn't translate to sales. If we are going to fix poor sales levels perhaps we need to look at other aspects of how we do business. - Ed

30/04/2018 21:22:06      Birthday Report Card        "Traders are generally  a tough breed to please .Good crowd numbers and strong advertising and for many that was not enough. I had a modest response to my products birthday offer however I had one of my best Sundays trade for a while.

Retail is not an exact science and sometimes we can over analyze things and still not get it right. Sunday proved that for me."     Stavros
Have to agree. Retailing is not an exact science although learning from experiences, particularly in times of change, remains an imperative. It is great that you had a better day, and I understand some of our food people did very well, but the over riding trend in the Upper Market suggests we have a lot more work to do. Thanks for your input - Ed.

06/05/2018 19:58:43      140th Birthday Trading        "We had our best week since Christmas and we were not alone in A Shed and the Victoria St shops. "         Marshall @rewine.
Excellent! Thanks for the feedback Marshall. - Ed