A Little Good News - the queue at the Donut Van in Queen St. on Saturday extended almost
back to the Meat Hall doors.
A Little Bad News - Thursday morning, 7:30am, Meat Hall, and the north side aisle did not
have one customer.
“Have
a bad day” - A common greeting between traders is “Have a good day”. But this trader decided to
use some reverse psychology last Sunday. He figured nobody was getting good
days at the moment so he wished all his neighbours “a bad day” hoping that
would change things. Surprisingly, it didn’t seem to work.
Good Night - but the first Winter Night Market came to the rescue for many
participants with a moderate crowd and some good trading results.
The
therapy of market friends. The importance of the friendships at QVM was raised
in an article last week under the heading “This could be the single most important element in our market.” The article examined emotional support
created by our relationships with fellow traders. It struck a chord with one
trader who recalled a typical conversation with his wife when he gets home from
the market. She doesn't ask “How was business today?” but “How was your therapy
today?”.
A
Trader suggests there is no single factor in retail challenges at the moment.
He sees it as a series of issues that all effectively dilute traditional
retailing. He is talking about strong competition particularly in fresh food,
online competition, and growing traffic congestion. They each take a little bit
of demand and force us to keep innovating.
Two
young drunks were skylarking in J Shed early one morning this week and managed
to knock down some tables that had been set up for trading. They were
good-natured and set about repairing the damage and reassembling the tables -
not sure how that turned out for the trader.
A
Trader says one of the best feelings at the market is when you sell something
for a neighbour while you are looking after their stall - something about
mateship and giving is better than receiving?
Traders
are asking why only two of the new SBA containers are open during the day?
Whisper is that new traders are being asked to go through many hoops before
they get their keys. Quality control of fit-outs is important but experienced
traders know there are ways and means of getting expeditious results and maybe
the newcomers need some help. Old hand, Bruce Pham, is up and running very quickly as are the 3 St.Kilda Craft Market Traders who have taken over the container on the top walkway.
 |
| Crowd In J Shed 12:53 Sunday 9th June |
A
number of traders commented on the big crowds in our market today (Sunday) as
another festival hit Queen St. and the long weekend attracted some extra
visitation. Converting the crowd to dollars however wasn’t easy with
disappointing results reported throughout the Upper Market. One Trader
commented “ Getting people here is important but that doesn’t guarantee sales. There
are lots of things impacting on consumers right now.”
A
Trader commented on the different clientele at our Night Market. He has never
seen so many customers paying with their mobile phones rather than cards - a very trendy crowd in his view.