9. Turning One Visit Into a Habit: Favourites, Trending and Just Listed
Finding a new customer is the hard part. Here is how buyers save you, how fresh stock gets surfaced, and how to use the window while it lasts.
The expensive customer is the first one. A customer who comes back doesn't have to find you again, which is why the most valuable thing a stall can build is not reach, but habit.
Two parts of the app do most of that work, and one of them has a time limit.
Favourites
Buyers can favourite your stall (the heart at the top of your stall gallery), and it lands in their Favourites list: a searchable view ("Search favourites or @handle…") showing your photo, your name, where you are and how many products you have, one tap from their home screen.
It sounds slight. It is not, because it changes what the buyer has to remember. An unfavourited stall has to be rediscovered every time: they need to recall roughly where you were and go looking. A favourited stall is two taps away forever.
Which makes "favourite us in the app so you can find us again" one of the more useful sentences you can say at a handover.
Just listed and Trending: the window
The app surfaces stock that is fresh through Just listed, and stalls getting attention through Trending nearby.
Just listed is the one to think about, because it is a genuine advantage with an expiry date. A new listing gets a period of visibility it will not get again. That is a gift, and it is wasted if you list everything in one burst on a quiet Tuesday.
The way to use it:
- List on the morning you actually have the thing, not the night before or the week after.
- Stagger it. If you have six things, list them across the days you trade rather than all at once.
- Update what already exists rather than deleting and relisting: open the listing, adjust stock or price, and save.
Trending follows attention, so it is less directly in your control. What you can do is give people a reason to look on the day you are stocked, which is exactly what honest operating hours and sharing your link on the morning you trade are for.
What this changes
A stall that relies only on discovery starts from zero every week. A stall with fifty people who have favourited it has an audience, and an audience is the thing that makes a small operation viable.
The practical version is unglamorous: ask people to favourite you at the gate, list on the day you pick, and keep your listings current on the mornings you trade. Do that for a season and you stop needing to be discovered at all.
Ready to put it into practice? Your stall is free to start at sidestall.au.
Last in this series: bulk deals and product variants, for selling more per visit.