Special Trading Arrangement At Christmas

Last week’s QVM letter to all traders regarding arrangements for additional trading days at Christmas raised concerns from traders on two fronts.

Firstly there was the decision to treat the additional Monday and Wednesday trading days in Christmas week as “special markets” rather than just apply the standard template. Using past practice, the Monday would have been declared, say a “Tuesday”, for the purpose of stall allocations and the Wednesday, say a “Thursday”. Traders like the comfort of knowing where they are likely to trade when deciding whether to take up extra trading opportunities.

However, QVM wants to allocate stalls on these two days in a structured way that will avoid last year’s blank spaces (apparently there were a number of absentees) and make our market look more appealing to customers. In addition they want to create extra parking for our customers at this very busy time for the market. The plan is to create a full market in C, D, and E sheds on the Monday and Wednesday with car parking extending from the asphalt car park into J, K, and L sheds as it does normally on non-trading days. We understand that Market Officers have already started the process of asking applicants where they would like to be positioned in C, D, and E sheds and they will be making every effort to accommodate individual wishes. If C, D, and E sheds become full, the market will extend into J shed.

The second point of concern related to SL traders who trade on Thursdays and Fridays having to pay extra rent for the additional trading days. Rents have been announced for the special markets at $23.45 per single stall. Essentially there is no argument with PE License holders paying rent. They only pay for the days they operate their stalls. SL Traders on the other hand pay monthly rental which includes trading and non-trading days, and public holidays which happen to fall on normal trading days. It was felt that SL traders, having lost two trading days (Thursday Christmas Day and Friday Boxing Day) were being unfairly treated. In a sense they have already paid for those days in their monthly rent and asking them to pay additional rent for the special Monday and Wednesday required re-consideration.

Trader Representatives and management discussed this issue at length at a  special meeting on Thursday and management have today announced a compromise that will allow SL traders a rebate. “If an SL trader trades on both the Monday and the Wednesday, the cost of 1 day will be rebated (ie: the trader will get 2 days trade for the price of 1).  The rebate will be processed to your account after Christmas.”

Full details will be explained in a special Trader Bulletin to be distributed over the weekend.

Have Your Say - click here.

COMMENTS:
05/12/2014 20:39:42 Monday, and Wed special market days. "I wonder if we will have power allocated to us traders who need it to operate? We have it at our regular stalls on the market days we trade, but what will happen if they move us to the other sheds??? Looks like well not be able to trade." 
Management have confirmed that they will be providing electricity for traders who currently have the facility on their normal trading site. Traders will need to specify that in their application. - Ed.

06/12/2014 09:01:23 Special trading days "From past years , the car park was not full, trade on Mondays and we'd were like a regular trading as far as turnover, leave traders be. We can not be moved all the way to the other side of the market...it will not work ."