Shopping Activity at Haymarket
The Haymarket area on Hanover St near Boston’s North end has pretty much been the
heart of shopping activity in Boston especially for older adults who have an unsaid
aversion to big and fancy shopping malls. These are the people who prefer to stick to the
‘old is gold’ adage when it comes to shopping for their daily necessities. Hence I chose
this market over the more upwardly mobile ones. The shopping activity comes to life
especially on Fridays and Saturdays. My visit happened to be on a Saturday morning.
Overview:-
The activity was monitoring and devising techniques to improvise the simple weekend
shopping at Haymarket that is a household chore for many. The people who indulged in
this were from many ethnic backgrounds and differed in age. However, the observation
and interviews were restricted to older adults.
Method:-
5 older adults were interviewed, among them 2 men and 3 women. A noteworthy
observation was the predominance of older women compared to men in terms of absolute
numbers (on the day of observation). Many older women carried small purses and hand-
bags as a means to carry cash. Some people were apparently weak and carried small-
wheeled carts to assist them with carrying goods. All interviewed people had access to a
car and a mobile phone. Each individual adult was asked a wide range of informal
questions to ‘break the ice’ and the topic was slowly drifted toward specific queries.
Questions varied from ‘How long have you been coming here?’ to ‘what do you like
about this place?’ People were also asked about ‘How would you improve this place?’
and other modes of shopping that they would prefer as an alternative to this one.
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Activity Observations:-
While the 2 older men seemed to know each other, the interviews with the 3 women were
relatively independent. The 2 men were new to Boston and as such had minor trouble
moving around the market and finding stuff. They found their way around by asking for
directions. One of them wanted ‘maps’ of the market to be distributed so that they could
find their way around. The other wanted the market to be organized in a better way so
that similar stuff was kept together. They shopped for few fruits and then seafood only to
find more fruit varieties at the other end of the market.
1 older woman was new to this place but had no problems navigating as she was
accompanied by her daughter. She had a fondness for meat as well as seafood but was
quite averse to going to that part of the market coz it was supposedly smelly and unclean.
The other 2 women revealed they had been frequenting this place for over 20 years. One
of them was carrying a cart. She said she was vegan and was attracted by the huge
amount of fresh vegetables in the market. She complained about the inconvenience of
carrying slippery vegetables and thus unavoidably carried a wheeled cart. Also, these 2
complained of having to walk through the entire market only to realize that a certain
commodity was not available.
Possible Technological integration:-
Since most people observed had access to a cell phone, the use of GPS navigation
integrated to a cell phone might prevent the trouble people have moving around
unfamiliar locales.
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Alternatively, a central ‘information booth’ could be maintained with wireless terminals
in every outlet of the market for efficient communication. Older adults could just ask the
administrator at the information booth about availability of a particular commodity. The
administrator could then communicate with the outlet through the local terminal at that
outlet. This could prevent futile trips like the ones the women complained of. Printouts of
electronic maps provided at the booth could help solve navigation problems like the ones
faced by the 2 old men. Also since the outlets sometimes change their position in
Haymarket dynamically, electronic maps which can be modified are a better option than
paper maps. Upon request, a printout of the most recent market-map can always be
provided.
At the central booth, an option of delivery at the counter can be provided for weak older
people who cannot walk the length and breadth of the market OR for women like the one
described above who couldn’t stand the smell of the huge amount of meat and seafood.
With a central booth connected to all outlet terminals, credit cards could be swiped at
individual outlets and the total would be added up at the central counter and charged to
the account of the person. This would reduce the number of singleton payments.
The report mentions all interviewed people having access to a car. But for adults lacking
in these, we could build a website for Haymarket which lists the prices of each
commodity per pound or by piece and prompts the adult to enter the number of pounds
that he/she wishes to purchase.
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