Hey stallholders, Nicki here…
“Each year, I like to share a little insight into my vision for Pedddle over the coming 12 months — from early-stage ideas and ‘seed’ thoughts to plans we’re actively putting into action.
I think it’s important to show how businesses grow and evolve, and to reflect on how our values and vision align with yours, and with the wider creative community too.”
My plan for 2025 is survival through careful decisions, uniting the community and continuing to raise its profile through the work we do. I am enjoying seeing the media coverage we are getting at the moment; we have been working hard on PR outreach. Third party coverage is a route to even better SEO for Pedddle.
We need to grow our membership too, keeping it accessible but ensuring it is funding our staff and other important costs. I’m not going to lie, this is a challenge right now.
For our stallholder community members, we’re switching how we deliver the monthly themes into 3 blocks for the year. Still covering around 12 topics, but delivered differently, potentially with a mini workbook for each one.
Your Dashboard is getting a complete refresh! Remember the Mighty App? It showed me how we could lay out information more clearly — but I also realised that you don’t need more checkpoints, you need fewer. The new Dashboard is designed to give us exactly what we’re looking for, without the clutter.
This year, it’s more important than ever to stay on top of processes — to guide your decisions, shape your actions for the year ahead, and bring clarity to your vision. It doesn’t have to be a huge plan or cover years ahead – life is throwing lots of twists and turns so it’s hard to know the situation in 6 months, let alone 5 years – but take time to reflect on your long-term vision.
Good luck, keep reaching out for support if needed, and I look forward to seeing how this year pans out!
Our reflections on last year…
Firstly, a reflection on last year and what that affects this year.
The very first NCMD (National Creative Market Day) went so well in 2024, I’d love to repeat it and see even more involvement from the community and more press coverage. We are working hard on PR at the moment, to further raise visibility for our community.
Next up, creating a Pedddle App – I’d love to do this, and I’ve looked into it but with the economy as it is, this sadly won’t be happening in 2025! Instead, our focus on growing the number of Members listed on Pedddle. Unfortunately, the cost of the app and the promotion of it possibly outweighed the benefit. Whilst I love an app, it feels like the wrong focus for us, for now.
I have also been thinking about our QR code system. Usage of this is still light, but ultimately you have to use what works best with you!
The best line I’ve said in the last year was, “I really hope 2024 is a better and more profitable year than 2023” – well, that did not happen! 2024 was by far worse than 2023 – both for Pedddle and unfortunately lots of other businesses. But the economic downturn has to stop at some point and improve! I’m currently sat here repeating ‘it will get better’ – but I am convinced it will.
Take a look below at what I wrote for 2023 and 2024 – I always find it useful to see what I wanted to happen and what did happen. Do you do this too?
What I said for 2024
This year I want to create a National Creative Market Day. When this will be is up for discussion, but I was thinking May. What this day looks like in my head is much more chatter around celebrating our markets and getting press coverage. On this day I would love to see everyone posting, emailing their audiences about their markets – what they love about them. My idea is to do a bit of a sonic boom effect, making a few ripples to get people that haven’t heard about markets to come out and attend.
I really want an app for Pedddle – but it costs a fortune, as you can imagine, and it’s money I don’t have right now. Many of you have mentioned about getting an app and maybe this year is the year.
I hope to see more use of the QR code by stalls and customers – I sidelined it a little last year but I really think it’s a good resource to encourage those sales at a market and then once the customer scans your QR code you stay on their dashboard so they can reconnect with you. Find out more about it here.
I felt that we neglected the community a little last year hopefully, but with the help of Clara we are going to have a little more interaction happening – I don’t want you to feel alone in this journey. If you don’t want to engage in the community stuff that is fine, just sit and watch!
I want to get more PR attention for Pedddle and by writing it here makes me accountable to do it. And, as always, we are working on our SEO. We had a site audit in 2023 and now we have made a change to the front page and we are working on other bits as we go.
We really hope 2024 is a better and more profitable year than 2023 – that was tough! Thanks for being a part of Pedddle and we appreciate you being part of our community.
What I said for 2023
The Pedddle team are getting out and about this year! We’d love to say hello to you in person.
We are hosting in-person meet-ups for our stallholders throughout the year. Please keep an eye on our Members-only Instagram grid for details.
Fancy selling at online markets? Our sister site, Tresstle, is ideal for you! We offer Pedddle members discounts on selling there. Click here for info.
As always, we love seeing Pedddle boards out at markets, stallholders encouraging customers to scan their QR codes, checking-in to markets on Pedddle and tagging us on social media – keep doing what you’re doing!
Thanks for supporting Pedddle and sharing our ethos. We love what we are building together and hope that one day lots of people will be saying ”let’s check Pedddle” whenever referring to markets and stallholders!