Where Mike Was Before
Before Marketlly, Mike ran the Certified Farmers Night Market with a mix of Squarespace, spreadsheets, and Canva. It worked, but the admin load was heavy enough that he was already dreading the upcoming season.
When we first pitched him on Marketlly, he was on board from the start. He knew exactly how much time he was losing to vendor management, and he wanted a way out.
Vendor Applications
Mike didn't have a real vendor application before. He was using Square and a checkout link, and vendors would just click through and pay for the upcoming event. There was no registration, no questions asked, no context on who was coming.
That meant every market, Mike had to export a list of who had paid, cross-reference it with his team, and figure out who still needed to be refunded or followed up with.
With Marketlly, he built proper vendor applications. He could ask the right questions up front, review applicants, and keep every vendor tracked on one dashboard.
Booth Payments
Payments were the biggest mess. Vendors would pay ahead through Squarespace, but they could pick which markets they wanted to attend, and they'd often book weeks out. Mike had no clean way to see who had paid for which upcoming market.
Inside Marketlly, he now creates a separate vendor application for every single event. Everyone knows exactly which market a vendor has paid for. Mike and his team can see revenue per market, refunds issued, and vendor status in one place. No more manual spreadsheet updates and no more scrambling to process refunds.
Getting Vendors on the Platform
A lot of Mike's vendors aren't tech-savvy, so we didn't want to force the switch overnight. We ran live demos and rolled Marketlly out gradually. His old application stayed live for a few weeks as a backup for anyone who applied that way, but we introduced Marketlly to every new vendor.
It took two to three markets to fully move everyone over. After that, the feedback was consistent. Vendors said it was easy to manage and easy to pay.
Booth Mapping
Mike used to build his booth map in Canva. Every layout change meant editing a design file and re-sharing it with the team. Now he uses Marketlly's built-in booth map inside the event planner, so the map lives next to the vendor list and payment status instead of in a separate app.
The Result
Mike's admin work dropped from more than 10 hours per market to about 1 hour. That time is going back into growing the market and booking more vendors, which is already showing up in his vendor counts.
The vendors have noticed too. They tell Mike the market feels organized, and they like how simple it is to pay and show up ready.