What To Ask On Your Vendor Application Form

The vendor call goes up on Instagram on a Monday night. By Friday you have 90 replies: most through the form, a dozen in your DMs, one as a voice note. Half the answers say "vintage clothes" and nothing else, and nobody mentioned they're bringing two full clothing rails.

That's the cost of a vendor application form that asks the wrong things. Ask too little and you spend three weeks chasing photos and power needs. Ask too much and good sellers give up halfway, and you end up holding personal data you never needed.

This guide covers the questions to ask, which to make required, what to leave off under Singapore's PDPA, how to score applications when you're curating, and the messages to send back.

We'll work it through for a curated 35-stall vintage and thrift market. It's an invented example, so swap in your own numbers. If you're still picking a date and a venue, start with our playbook for running a market and come back when you're ready to open applications.

Which Questions Belong On Your Vendor Application Form?

Eight questions cover almost every market: who they are, what they sell, proof of it, food, power, setup, team size and a yes to your rules. Here's each one and what it's for:

1. Brand name and one contact. The name for the stall sign and your Instagram post, exactly as they want it printed, plus a contact name, mobile number and email.
2. What they sell, with a price range. "1990s band tees and denim, S$15 to S$60" tells you more than "vintage clothes".
3. Photos or a shop link. Three photos of their stock or a past stall, or an Instagram or Carousell link. For a curated market, this is what you'll actually judge on.
4. Food on site. In Singapore, each stall that prepares or handles food needs its own Temporary Fair Food Stall Licence from SFA, covered in our guide to the Temporary Fair Permit in Singapore.
5. Power, and what for. A garment steamer isn't a phone charger, and the venue only has so many sockets. Ask for the device, not just yes or no.
6. Setup needs. Their own clothing rail, mirror, table, or a wall to hang things on? Rails change your floor plan, so ask before you draw it.
7. Team size. How many people will be at the stall, for chairs, setup passes and the venue's headcount.
8. Agreement to your rules and refund terms. A required checkbox linking to a short page: setup times, what can't be sold, what happens if they cancel. Card fairs need a fuller rulebook, covered in house rules for card fair vendors.

Our test for every question: if the answer doesn't change who you accept, where you put them or what you tell them, cut it.

Required Or Optional: How To Set Each Question

Make a question required only if you can't accept or place a vendor without the answer, and leave everything else optional. Here's how we'd set each one for a curated market:

Keep past events optional. A first-time seller with a great eye is exactly who a curated market should find, and a required "list your last three markets" tells them not to bother.

What Not To Ask On A Vendor Application Form

Don't ask for anything you can't name a use for, and don't ask for NRIC numbers on the form. Singapore's PDPA lets you collect personal data only for purposes a reasonable person would consider appropriate, and only after telling people what those purposes are.

On NRIC numbers, PDPC is specific. Since 1 September 2019, private businesses may not collect NRIC numbers or copies of the NRIC unless the law requires it or it's necessary to verify identity to a high degree of accuracy. The same goes for FIN and Work Permit numbers, and as we read it, a stall application is neither case. PDPC's reminder on the NRIC Advisory Guidelines

Things we'd leave off a market form:

• NRIC, FIN or passport numbers, or a photo of an IC
• Date of birth, unless the venue has a real age rule
• Home address, since you almost never post a vendor anything
• Bank details. If you have to refund someone, ask then.
• Sales figures or income

There's one exception. For a food stall run by an individual rather than a company, the fair operator sends SFA a copy of both sides of their ID. Ask for it only from food stalls you've accepted, only when you file, and keep it out of the shared spreadsheet. We'd delete our copies once the licenses are issued.

Put one plain line at the top of the form: "We use your details to review your application, place your stall and contact you about this market."

This is general guidance, not legal advice.

How To Score Applications For A Curated Market

Score every application on the same three points, with category caps set before the form opens, so two reviewers looking at the same stall reach the same answer.

The Scoring Sheet

Add three columns to your answer sheet, each scored 0, 1 or 2:

• Fit. Real vintage and secondhand scores 2. New fast fashion styled as vintage scores 0.
• Presentation. From the photos, will the stall look good and be easy to shop? Clear prices and a tidy rail score 2.
• Mix. Does it fill a gap, or is it the fourteenth denim stall? Rare categories score 2.

That's a score out of 6. Before scoring, check the rules box is ticked and the food answer matches what they sell. A coffee cart that answered "no food" gets a message, not a score.

Don't score on follower count. A seller with 300 followers and a great rail beats a big account with a thin one.

Balancing The Mix

Fill each category from the top score down, up to the caps you set when you planned your mix.

Have two people score separately and only discuss applications where they differ by 2 points or more.

Walkthrough: A Curated 35-Stall Vintage And Thrift Market

Here's how it plays out for an invented 35-stall vintage and thrift market on a Sunday, with applications open for 3 weeks.

1. Set the caps. 14 clothing, 6 bags and accessories, 5 homeware and records, 4 books, magazines and cameras, 4 upcycled and mending, 2 coffee and snacks. That's 35.
2. Open the form. Eight questions, photos required. Say 110 applications arrive, 60 of them clothing.
3. Score. At about 2 minutes each, each reviewer spends under 4 hours.
4. Fill by category. The top 14 clothing scores get in and the next 5 go on the waitlist. Only 3 homeware applications score 4 or more, so 2 spots stay open for direct invites. Our guide on how to find vendors for your market covers where to look.
5. Check the practical answers. Nine accepted stalls want power but the hall has 8 sockets along one wall, so the steamers get them and the phone charger brings a power bank. The 2 coffee stalls get a separate message asking for their SFA paperwork.
6. Send decisions within 5 days of closing. Acceptances first, with a payment deadline, then the waitlist, then declines.

The caps did most of the work. On score alone, clothing would have taken 25 stalls.

Acceptance And Decline Messages To Send

Send every applicant an answer within a week of closing, from a short template, so it takes an hour instead of an evening.

Acceptance:

Hi [Brand], you're in for the market on [date]. Your stall is [number]. Please pay S$[amount] by [deadline] to confirm it, with your stall number as the reference. Setup is from 8am, and full vendor info follows a week before.

Waitlist:

Hi [Brand], thanks for applying. We had more [category] stalls than space, so you're on our waitlist. If a spot opens before [date], it's yours first.

Decline:

Hi [Brand], thanks for applying. We can't offer you a stall this time: [one-line reason, such as "we capped clothing at 14 and filled it"]. We'd love to see you apply for the next one.

Keep the reason about the market, not the vendor. And send the declines, because silence is what sellers remember when your next call goes out.

Google Forms Or A Booking Form?

A Google Form is a fair, free choice for most markets, and it's what we'd use for a first market with a few dozen applicants. Everyone knows it, the answers land in a Google Sheet, and your scoring columns sit right beside them.

One catch: a file upload question makes every applicant sign in to a Google account. Ask for a shop link instead. Google's help page on Forms question types

Where a form runs out is after the decision. Stall numbers, payments and answers end up in three places, and you match them by hand.

BookASquare puts the questions on the booking itself: custom questions on the booking form, approval per booth type, and a CSV export with one column per question. The limit to know is that vendors pick a stall and pay when they apply, and the booking waits for your review, so a decline means you refund them yourself. If you'd rather nobody pays until you've said yes, a Google Form first and a payment request after fits better.

What To Do Next

Write your form this week, before the vendor call goes out:

1. Draft the eight questions and mark which are required.
2. Add the purpose line, and check nothing from the "leave off" list crept in.
3. Set your category caps and add the three scoring columns.
4. Write the acceptance, waitlist and decline templates now, while you're calm.

If you want vendors to answer your questions, pick their stall and wait for your approval in one step, see how vendor applications and approvals work.