Checklist · 7 min read

The market stall checklist: what to pack, price, and track

Published July 2026 · by the makers of StashQ

Every seller has the market day where it clicked — and the one where the card reader died, the $6 soap had no price tag, and someone drove off saying "I'll pay you Friday." This checklist is the second kind of day, turned into a list so it never happens again. Print it, or steal the parts you're missing.

The night before: 30 minutes that decide the day

• Count what you're bringing — and write it down. Not "about two boxes." Real numbers per product. Tomorrow's sales only mean something measured against tonight's count.
• Check your bestsellers against their reorder points. If tomorrow sells out your fastest product, the restock batch should start this weekend — not after you notice the empty shelf next week.
• Price everything now. An unpriced product at a busy stall doesn't start a conversation; it ends one. If you're unsure what to charge, do the math once with a real cost calculator (we keep free ones for candles and soap) instead of discounting on the spot out of nerves.
• Charge everything. Phone, backup battery, card reader, the lamp for the dark corner booth. A dead phone at a cash-free market is a closed stall.
• Cash float: $100 in small bills and coins. The first customer of the day always pays with a twenty.

The pack list people forget

• Canopy weights — the canopy is remembered, the wind is not.
• Tablecloth long enough to hide your storage bins under the table.
• Painter's tape, zip ties, scissors, and a marker — the fix-anything kit.
• A mirror if you sell anything wearable; a lighter if you sell anything scented.
• Small bags, tissue, and a few gift-ready options — gifting doubles your average sale on the right weekend.
• A "back in 5 minutes" sign, because you are one person and coffee exists.

Payments: assume the WiFi dies

Venue WiFi fails at exactly the moment the line is longest. Whatever you use to take payments and record sales must work offline and sync later — that one requirement quietly rules out most point-of-sale setups. (It's why StashQ's Market Mode records sales with no signal at all and reconciles when you're back home.) Accept at least: card tap, one QR app your local crowd actually uses, and cash. Post the QR code where hands point, not where knees are.

During the day: three habits

• Record every sale as it happens — tap it into your phone or tally it on paper, but never "I'll remember." The gap between what you brought and what you count tonight is your shrinkage, and untracked sales make it invisible.
• Capture the customer, not just the cash. The person who loved the cedar candle but bought nothing? If they'll give you an Instagram handle or an email, that's tomorrow's sale. Wholesale inquiries especially — get the name in the moment.
• Note what people picked up and put down. Products that get touched but not bought are usually priced wrong or explained wrong — that's free market research happening at your table.

The 20-minute close-down that saves your Monday

• Count remaining stock before you pack it — counting out of the boxes at home never happens.
• Reconcile: brought − remaining = sold. Does it match your recorded sales + IOUs? Find the gap while you still remember the day.
• Write the restock list now, while the empty spots are visible. If anything hit its reorder point, tonight is when the next batch gets scheduled.
• Log the day's costs — booth fee, parking, that emergency roll of tape. Market profit is real profit only after the booth fee.

None of this needs software — a notebook and discipline genuinely work. The checklist is the point. But if you'd rather the counting, reconciling, and IOU-remembering happened by itself, that's the exact job we built StashQ for: record the sale at the stall, and the stock, the customer, and the money owed all update in one motion.