Many traders
are on the merry-go-round of improving their offer in a whole lot of different
ways as we tackle the negative impact of this retail revolution, but sometimes it
is not the offer that is at fault.
There are times when we all need to take a
deep breath and acknowledge that other things are at play. Sometimes it is not
the supply side of the business equation but the demand side that is
restricting sales.
The last few
days in the Upper Market have shown remarkable differences in consumer
reaction. Thursday was generally considered a good trading day with good crowds
and a number of traders reporting the best sales in some time. It led some to
speculate that interstate school holidays that started later than Victoria were
starting to feed interstate visitors into the market.
Friday had
good crowds in the Upper Market (in fact one trader complained he had
difficulty getting his stock trolley through the crowd around mid-day), but
many reported poor business, and the momentum from Thursday was not sustained. Saturday
was a real conundrum because there were huge crowds in Queen St. with long
queues at many of the food outlets, but business in the Upper market was poor.
A couple of
traders have reported that their sales have been dominated by international
buying this week, one saying that every single customer on Saturday was
international (and he wasn’t selling souvenirs).
There are
obviously many factors currently impacting on customer buying patterns. We know
that we need to spread our influence as wide as possible these days and things
like websites and social media can help. We may need to re-examine our trading
hours as suggested by CEO Stan Liacos. In particular we need to communicate
with our customers, understand what they are looking for, and keep our product range
relevant.
Assuming we are doing all those things, there is no sense in beating
ourselves up over days when sales are poor. The customer is the master, and
they can be fickle. That is just part of modern retailing.
COMMENTS:
22/04/2018 22:24:27 Market Traders it's not you "Many traders have many opinions on many subjects. However with all the uncertainty over the past few years should we just control what we can control and concentrate our energy & focus on the customers we do get."
