Sellers on the summer markets: two months to make a success | M6 | Zone Interdite

In summer more than 13,000 markets bring life to the towns and cities of France. In certain communes, such as Arles, Marseilles or Nice, the markets provide a living for hundreds of travelling vendors. You can find everything: clothing, food, crockery, hardware, artwork, etc. Over recent years, markets seem to have regained their former glory.

One reason is the fashion for wholesome eating that is driving French families to go to markets and purchase produce grown in their region or nearby. So fruit brings perfume to the stalls, vegetables of the most amazing colors and shapes  look appetizing, a far cry from what is found in the supermarkets. In a way, it’s a symbol of pleasure, of well-being.

So are the markets the enticing place they seem to be, where customers can enjoy fine produce “Made in France”, grown according to the rules of the art, from vendors who can sell the fruit of their labor at a good price, enabling them to earn a comfortable living?

These vendors “do the markets” out of a passion. A passion that dwindles as the years pass: the work is exhausting you have to be on your toes from 3 in the morning till the end of the market at the beginning of the afternoon and pays very little.

What are the secrets of the markets? At dawn, the stalls are ready, the vendors full of a joy and teasing humor that seem to have existed forever. And yet, the evening before, nothing was there and in a few hours they will disappear only to reappear in a few days time, refreshed. What is their working day like? From setting up their stalls to taking them down? Often, from one year to the next, you find the same vendors, but not always. What happened to them? What do they do once the tourist season is over? What income do they make? In summer the markets are thronged, but is that the case all year round? Isn’t it vital for them to have a successful season for any hope of survival? Can they win the fierce battle waged against them by the supermarkets? What is the right strategy to adopt?