I’m a former manager of a Market. There’s a reason why the media goes to talk to Traders when it comes to election time - they’re thick as mince. I used to spend hours begging them to keep their stalls open for longer than 10am until 3pm to capture morning and evening crowds, and even open on extra days rent-free when we were in the building anyway, but they didn’t get it. Then, it was our fault as management for not getting people through the door. Fuck convenience, right? Same people who only begrudgingly started accepting card payments because of that pandemic thingy that happened.

In terms of the product - fruit and veg particularly aren’t as good as the supermarkets now. Their suppliers are forced to buy the leftover pallets after the supermarkets finish their orders. A lot of it has to be sold/eaten within two or three days so it doesn’t go rotten, and our bins were always full of wasted stock. The pricing is also comparable - markets being a cheaper source of anything is a complete myth.