The second day of the Richmond Night Market was still rainy, so Cara Wu and Yannis Zhen, sales managers of ToyFive, chose to cook instant noodles and watch shows in their retail stall instead of closing the store.
The slow, rainy day inspired Wu to turn her night market experience into a vlog and post it on Little Red Book – it went viral receiving over 8,000 views.
“We need to stay open even on rainy days. We set up the tent to shelter from the rain, which inspired us to create some interesting videos to bring joy to netizens,” Wu said.
In addition to their rainy-day vlog, Wu started making vlogs about the stall’s setup and business operations for their store’s account.
“Because I enjoy watching such vlogs from other bloggers, I want to create videos for product promotion and provide relaxation for our customers.”
When they started posting their vlogs, the engagement hugely improved compared to posting just photos, Wu explained. Their Little Red Book account gained more than 500 followers in a week and more than a thousand in a month.
“The online traffic indeed brings more customers to our store - it even attracts customers from China to purchase our puzzles,” Wu said.
Zhen, another worker of ToyFive, mentioned that increasing their brand awareness through setting up a stall at the night market is their primary task, and they have begun operating on various social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok for marketing.
“In previous years, there were many tourists who would film vlogs to recommend something for the Richmond Night Market,” Zhen said. “The early opening of this year and the recent unpredictable weather have both become the factors that cause the number of posts made by merchants to be higher than that made by visitors.”
ToyFive isn’t the only night market vendor making videos and posting them on social media.
Yi Lin, the vendor of OnePick, created a series titled “90s Rebirth Diary: Vancouver Stall Setup” to document her daily business experience.
The video style is interesting and lets more netizens know what happens in a day from the vendor’s point of view.
“I just moved from Toronto to Vancouver, so everything for me is a new experience. I used a daily vlog to record my experiences and life so that I could look back on in the future,” Lin said.
Her purpose for the Little Red Book account is not for selling products, but still, around 20 per cent of customers come because of these videos.
As her clothing style is more suitable for TikTok and Instagram, Lin pays more attention to other social media platforms.
Lin added that Richmond Night Market officials mainly focus on food stores as their selling point, which explains why many retailers at Richmond Night Market started creating their own short videos for marketing.
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