Recruiting and keeping good stallholders
Where to find quality sellers for a new market, how to vet them quickly, and the small habits that turn one-off bookings into a returning roster.
Attendees come back for the stalls, not the venue. A market with 30 good sellers beats a market with 80 mediocre ones every time. Recruiting them is mostly a numbers game; keeping them is almost entirely about being easy to work with.
Where to find them
- Other nearby markets. Visit them as a customer. Note the sellers who've got busy stalls and collect their cards.
- Local maker / trader Facebook groups.Every region has a few. Post a short, specific application call — not a generic "sellers wanted".
- Instagram hashtags for your area. Search "[town] handmade", "[town] vintage", "[town] baker" — DM the active accounts.
- Past sellers, every time. Always invite previous sellers first, before opening to new ones. It saves you vetting and rewards loyalty.
A fast vetting checklist
You don't need a formal application form for most markets. Five quick checks cover almost everything:
- Have they got a working public-facing page (website / Instagram / Facebook) you can look at?
- Are the photos genuine, not stock or AI?
- Do they fit your market's vibe (food / vintage / crafts / mixed)?
- For food: do they have the right hygiene rating and own insurance?
- Have they answered a basic logistics question (stall size, power needs)?
Communicate like a professional
The single biggest reason sellers don't come back is poor communication. Reply within 24 hours, always. Send a confirmation email the moment they book. Send a logistics email the week before — pitch number, arrival window, parking, contact phone, weather plan. Send a thank-you email after, ideally with footfall numbers.
Curate the mix, don't fill the field
Three jewellery sellers in a row is bad for all three of them and for the attendee experience. Be willing to say "not this time" to good sellers if you're over-indexed in their category, and explain why — most will understand and book the next one.
Make it easy to pay
On OM Events, stall bookings and payments happen in-app via Stripe — sellers get a digital stall ticket with a pitch number, and you get the money straight to your Stripe account minus the platform commission. No invoicing, no chasing payment on the morning, no envelopes of cash to count down.
Two small habits that keep sellers loyal
Walk the market at quiet times and chat to every seller. Five minutes per stall, listening to how their day's going. And after the event, send the post-event email within 48 hours — if you leave it a fortnight, the next market you run starts as a cold pitch instead of a warm one.