Telling your customers you're open

Here is the week that goes wrong. You finish the shop, you press publish, you put “we’re online now!” somewhere, and nothing happens. A few days pass. You decide selling online doesn’t work for what you make. In almost every case the shop was fine and the announcement was the problem.

Worth saying plainly, because it shapes everything below: we don’t send you customers. We’ve never claimed to. What you have that a stranger doesn’t is people who already know you, and this guide is about reaching those people properly.

Your first order comes from someone who already follows you

Not from a search engine. Not from a passer-by. From the people on your Facebook page, the ones who stop at your table every second Saturday, the ones with your card on the fridge.

That is not a consolation prize. It’s the whole mechanism. Those people have wanted to buy from you at a moment that wasn’t market day and had no way to do it. The link is the thing that was missing.

Post where the relationship already lives

Whatever channel you already use, use that one. If your people are in a community Facebook group, post there. If it’s Instagram, post there. If it’s a mailing list you send twice a year, send it there.

Do not start a new channel for this. A brand-new account has no one in it, and building one up is a project that has nothing to do with selling the things you have already made. The point of the link is that it drops into a conversation that is already happening.

Announce a thing, not a website

This is the part that changes the outcome, and it’s a small change.

“My online shop is now live” asks people to go and browse, which is a chore, so they mean to later and don’t. A specific item at a specific price asks them to make one small decision they can make immediately.

So: a photo of one thing, what it is, what it costs, and the link. The blue mugs, $34, here’s where. That’s the post. If you want to mention that there’s a shop behind it, mention it second.

Pick something you have several of and can post again in a fortnight. And keep going: one item every week or two, indefinitely. Not a campaign, not a launch. Just the ordinary rhythm of showing people what you made this week, with a link under it now.

If someone asks “is this still available?” in the comments, the answer is the link. That question is the exact thing the shop exists to stop, and every time you answer it with a link instead of a conversation, you get an evening back.

The sign on your table

If you sell in person, the market table is your best channel and it costs nothing.

Put a small sign on it with your shop address written out. Not a bare QR code: plenty of people at a Nova Scotia market won’t scan one, and a web address they can read and remember works on everybody. Add the code underneath if you like, for the people who will.

Then say it out loud. When someone picks a thing up, likes it, and puts it back, that is the moment. “If you want to think about it, it’s on my website.” They often buy it that evening. That single sentence, repeated across a market day, does more than any post.

It also solves the thing you already deal with every week: the customer who wants the one you sold an hour ago, or wants it in green, or has no cash. They can now go and get it themselves.

Timing

If your selling year has a shape, announce into the busy part, not the quiet part. Announcing while you’re actively seeing people every week means you can mention it in person over and over, which is worth more than the post itself.

A lot of Nova Scotia markets are seasonal, and a good number run right through the winter. Either way, the online shop is most useful in the gap: it’s how the people who found you in August can still buy from you in February. If you’re setting up in the off-season, announce anyway, and announce again when the season starts. You are allowed to say it twice. Most of your people missed it the first time, and none of them are keeping score.

What not to do

Don’t buy ads. Don’t worry about your follower count. Don’t build a mailing list funnel, or read about engagement, or post daily because something told you to. None of that is your job, and most of it is designed for businesses that don’t have what you already have.

You have a group of people who like what you make and know your name. Tell them about one thing, with a link, and then do it again next week.