More market madness at Fremantle

In the words of the great philosopher Forrest Gump,‘Stupid is as stupid does’. The mayhem and madness at Fremantle Markets continues.

Although daylight savings has recently been voted against in Western Australia the Murdoch management has turned around and right in the cold, dark, wet days of late winter / early spring, they have extended trading hours. Although most customers have left by about 4 pm the stallholders are now forced to sit around until 6pm before they can pack up and leave. Many need to make multiple trips, carrying boxes of stock, to cars parked down the road, in near dark and often wet conditions.

Lately, the trading hours look like something from a lotto draw. As previously predicted the markets are now operating as two separate entities. The outdoor area has become known as the yard and the indoor area is now referred to as the hall.

Actually it’s really three separate markets now that they have the new Wednesday markets.

The yard is almost entirely food related and the hall is predominately merchandise. Not to forget the little table with the thimble sized plastic cups set up as the new wine tasting area and now grandiosely referred to as Fontes Pool.

The hall is open Friday from 10am til 8pm. Saturday and Sunday from 10am til 6 pm.

The yard is open Friday Sat and Sun from 8am til 6pm, although on their website today I noticed they still advertise Friday as open 9am til 8pm and Sat and Sun from 10am til 6pm, and no reference to halls and yards. Also noted is that public holidays are open from 10am til 6 pm. (not sure if that's halls and yards)

Wednesday the yard is listed as 10am til 3 pm or maybe that is 8am til 2pm. Doesn’t really matter much, as talk is that it might be changed to 12 til whenever. This is because they now look to be opening Thursdays throughout the Christmas season and it has been bought to the attention of management that the regular stallholders can't set up to trade on Thursdays if the new markets are operating on Wednesday.

The Wednesday market is a huge flop already but how do those people even imagine making a go of a business which opens at noon. (Will they still pay the same rent?)

Confusing? Not really, when you remember the Murdoch’s stated clearly that after the previous dispute about Thursday trading hours they had agreed that the markets would not be opening on Thursdays.

And now it just gets stupider. They have decided to close down the fruit and veg section on Friday night. Friday nights and Sundays are the two busiest times for trading and regular customers have shopped for fresh veg’s on Friday night for years and years. Last Friday the stallholders were horrified as market management herded out their customers by dropping tarpaulins, pinning up signs and calling out something along the line of 'everyone out - you must leave now – this section is closed'.

Yep, believe it or not, customers were cattle called out of the outdoor area but told they could walk around the outside of the market to re-enter the hall area.

There you have it, the produce guys can open on Thursdays when there are very few customers and close on Friday nights when they have established huge customer following. Not to mention the almighty $’s in the Murdoch pocket once again; Thursday trade is of course another way of increasing rents even more.

Friday night you can shop in the hall but you can't continue through to the yard for any food related product. Sunday you can buy your lunch at 8am but then you would need to wait around a few hours to enter the indoor area.

Seriously, if you would like to shop at the markets, don’t rely on the website it’s a bit complex and contradictory at the moment. When they do get it streamlined it will probably look like a train timetable. Why not just email or phone and ask for today’s hours. If enough people call they might put a recorded message on which they could update each week. They could even add a press 2 button for people wondering what stalls might still be operating each week.

If this year's mayhem is an indication of their 21st century vision then I have a great idea:
Why not put the stalls on ebay and auction trading times? Customers can bid on when they would like to shop and even select what stalls they would like to browse. Stall sizes and location are already being changed at whim so why not trading hours? Why not individualize it rather than section it?

Phone (08) 9335 2515
Fax (08) 9336 1704
email info@fremantlemarkets.com.au



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