Market Operations

As my market comes upon opening day in little more than a week, I wonder, “What do you do when your vendors don’t follow the rules?” Many markets have this problem. And often the reason is that there is no formalized structure for how the market is run. Each market is different but some markets may just have the right idea.

Take the Ithaca Farmers’ Market for an example. This market is a co-operative and thus has a very formalized structure for how decisions are made and how the market is governed. This can be very helpful is ensuring that the market vendors have commitment to the market since they are paying a membership fee to be a part of the cooperative and then a seasonal fee to sell at the market. But when decisions are made…it is made by all the members. And when was the last time you tried to get 100+ people to agree on anything? Other markets, like the GreenMarkets in New York City, are run by  one entity who trains the market managers and deals with all the vendor recruitment. This can be great because one entity is making the decisions but who is answerable to whom?

I have seen this recently in my farmers’ market. This may be due to the fact that I will not be on-site for much of the market this season, or just because there will always be a few who want to see how far they can bend the rules. What I have learned is that your best weapon against this is the other vendors. A good market does not want to see dissension or customer confusion because not everyone is following the same rules. Peer pressure can be a wonderful thing..and in this case…just the right solution.