The problem is really that people don’t want to buy what they sell, and the hawkers just can’t admit that
It was bound to happen. Now the hawkers at the Sunday market in Floriana want to move to a more prominent place in Valletta, too.
They think it will help sales by increasing traffic. They haven’t worked out yet that rapidly decreasing foot-traffic has nothing to do with the location and everything to do what they sell and the fact that people don’t really want to buy it.
The shops are full of stuff. The markets offer nothing different and certainly no lower prices. Life has changed. Consumer patterns have changed. Shopping habits have changed. There are so many things people can buy, in physical shops and on the internet, that they really have no reason to go to a shabby market like that.
Yes, there are markets like that all over Europe, but wherever they exist, they are failing and have shrunk to just a few stalls frequented only by people in the immediate neighbourhood. Nobody else bothers going to them.
If the stall-holders think that by shifting into Ordnance Street, they are going to offload their piles of unwanted tat, they are seriously mistaken. Perhaps giving into them on this one is the only way to make them see the truth of this. But once they have experienced it, please move them out again immediately.
They belong to another age and another life, and the sooner they understand this and develop a different business model, rather than a different location, the better for us all, and especially better for them because they might actually make more money.
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The worst is that there is no possibility of this decision being reversed by another government.
Why not?
And amen to that.
Renzo Piano will watch, wonder and force a smile at such a stupid decision to place a market close to his state of the art building
Ir-rubbish politics tal-Labour tas-soltu taghom.
Mhux hekk! Move out? Not when they have a signed agreement together with site plan signed by Stefan Zrinzo and Joseph Muscat on the last Friday before the election.
When I first arrived on the rock, I went to the Monti from which I could buy 12 lighters for 1 Lira. (incorrigible cigar smoker) Unfortunately, once the temperature reached 25C they all exploded. Beware.
Egad! Someone had betetr buy the National Security Minister an air-conditioned popemobile. AFM boys could get showered in a blast of pastizzi and sausage rolls at the next summer parade.
They say that it was an electoral promise.
Electoral promises should be made public. Many voters, had they known about this or other secret electoral promises, would have not voted PL. They now feel that they have been cheated.
A new law should be made regarding electoral promises. This law would make electoral promises which are not made public be considered invalid after an election.
These are the same people who promised Grace Borg they’d look into restricting shopping over the net.
As if they care for anyone other than those with vested interests when tackling an issue.
Problem is they haven’t a clue how catchment, mix and product work. They’ll just impose it and will gladly blame Arriva for taking people to new urban centres.
It has to be seen who’s in line for the slots, some ‘hawkers’ have taken to migrants to manage multiple stalls to hog the space. Illegal practice using illicit means.
Prosit Joseph, even if you can sell it to that mafia, doesn’t mean we’ll buy.
Has it occurred to anyone that it is so very lejber that the hawker’s representative, who signed the pre-election nuptual agreement with the lejber party, is Joe Zrinzo?
He’s Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi’s daddy.
[Daphne – Yes, and a Freemason.]