The winning tactics of market traders

When Mary Portas unveiled her report on revitalising the High Street one of her recommendations was to relax licensing rules for market stalls to make it easier for people to set up stands, and for there to be a national market day.

A couple of market traders debating this report on Radio 2 were asked why they thought people liked shopping in markets.  One said he thought that people actually enjoyed the banter whilst they shopped instead of being tossed a cursory glance by oh-too-many couldn't care less shop assistants.


It made me think that actually market traders do quite a lot that we business owners should emulate. 

Enthusiasm - there's no surprise that they are enthusiastic, upbeat and persistent.  It's their business and they understand the consequences of not being like that!  Are you enthusiastic, upbeat and persistent in your business?  Every day?

They understand their client market - what they will buy, what they won't.  What they are enquiring about.  How easy do you make it for your clients to give you feedback?  And do you act on that feedback or are those good old feedback forms just filed away...

Chatting to clients works - "I love your bracelet"  "Nice tie mate" gets us into a conversation and whilst you may not have a  market stall you do have social networking sites where you can communicate in an informal way and build those all important relationships.

Upselling - "tell you what, buy that bunch of flowers and I'll chuck in a bunch of bananas" - have you worked out where and how to upsell?  If not you could be missing a real trick.  Remember it's six times less effort to sell to existing clients than new ones...

The power of great marketing, backed by the power of great customer service - surely a winning conversation.

As that famous author "Anon" once said "Go the extra mile, it's never crowded."  Perhaps that should be our new business mantra...share this blog post and we can all move forward...

What do you think?