A dying breed. (Markets in general)

Member Name: kelly10

Product:	Markets in general
Date:	11/09/08 (65 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: None

Disadvantages: Everything mentioned in my review

Now in theory I agree with helping markets and local traders but find that in practise it is a totally different thing.

When I go to work, I get off the bus and then walk through the market place. Most traders at this time are still in the midst of setting up but you get to see most of what they offer, and believe me it is not impressive.

Most of the clothing on offer is of the cheap nylon variety and on the rare occassions I see anything decent it has an over inflated price tag which would be more at home in a boutique not a dying market stall. The books are terrible. Yes they are all second hand, but they are all yellowing and dog eared and the musty smell can be smelt from a mile off. You would be better going to a charity shop, it's cheaper and your money goes to a good cause. I also noticed a high number of second hand stalls and the quality of the stuff they had on offer was terrible. Items were certainly past their sell by date and they had silly prices with too many numbers in them!

I noticed this week that there was one stall selling second hand DVD's and there were none under £5. Why would you pay that when you can buy brand new from a shop or on the internet for under £5? Some of them looked a bit dodgy, as if they should have been sold out of a binbag by a bloke in a pub!

A few weeks back during my lunch hour I decided I wanted to buy some new make-up. For some reason that even I don't know, I found my self looking at the make up on the market. Surprisly I didn't buy anything. The majority of the products were actually testers. Now I thought that was illegal, but I didn't want to argue with the man at the till as he looked more like an angry rotweiller! I also noticed that most of the make up was from the last decade. Make up has a use by date, so I wouldn't want to risk my eyes with that mascara or eyeliner.

All in all I find markets are now a big disappointment and if we the customer are meant to support them, then they have to change and offer products we want at acceptable prices and with a service that more then matches.

The only markets I will now deciede to go to are the speciallity food markets although the standard of the one where I live is in a rapid decline. This was actually a French market, but you could always get some great cheese. It mainly had stalls selling cheeses and meats but there was a lot of other choice but just not in so much abundance. Now it has moved to a smaller venue has one stall that sells both cheeses and meats, a stall selling olives in every variety that you want, a stall selling knitted and crotchet goods and rather oddly another selling soaps. So I find it hard to support as there is less and less things for me to choose from and I am finding that there are more cheeses on offer at Tesco.
Surely in this economic climate the market holders would want to get people back shopping locally. They need to get their thinking caps on, offer a wider range of products, improve the quality of the products, have better deals and do more to get customers back.

Summary: If your good at rooting out a bargain it might be worthwile