Seller Spotlight
Tridentcards
How a card shop keeps selling long after the doors have shut.
+95K Items Sold
|
+65K Followers
|
⭐️ 5.0 Rating
|
3K Reviews
|
1.2K+ Hours Livestreamed
|
+95K Items Sold | +65K Followers | ⭐️ 5.0 Rating | 3K Reviews | 1.2K+ Hours Livestreamed |
Meet the Seller
TridentCards is a trading card and collectibles retailer that's grown from a corner shop side operation into two Nottingham shops.
With Jarret and the team leading the streams, it brings the same sealed product, singles and in-store excitement to Whatnot.
Prior to Whatnot
Trident Cards had been in operation for around seven years, starting as a small setup inside a local corner shop.
They opened their first store in Bulwell, then a second store in Mansfield a few years later.
Stores sold sealed product and singles, and the team traveled to card shows across the UK and Europe to source and sell.
They also sold online through Shopify, eBay, Cardmarket, and TCGplayer.
Sales heavily depended on store opening hours, and customers living close enough to visit.
Singles often took a long time to sell, meaning boxes of good stock sat in storage around the store.
"The biggest barrier for a business like ours is when the doors close, the sales close. But now, when our store closes, our Whatnot opens, and we continue operations."
- Jarret, TridentCards
"We've built a community that really engages with us – they’re probably more engaged in streams than the customers that come into the store."
- Jarret, TridentCards
Launching on Whatnot
They were cautious at first, and wanted to make sure the platform was safe before investing time and resources.
Friends and sellers they knew were already streaming on Whatnot, which helped build confidence.
Their first show was a test: a phone on a small stand, plugged in so the battery wouldn’t run out.
With no backdrop and no production experience, their focus was on making sure the show was fun to watch.
Going live for the first time was more nerve wracking than opening a store, because the audience could arrive all at the same time on Whatnot.
"A store naturally takes time to get people to come in, whereas when you go live on Whatnot, all of a sudden you've got millions and millions of people that could just join the stream at any moment."
- Jarret, TridentCards
Growing on Whatnot
They kept early shows small, focusing on creating engaging formats and building their community.
As they invested more hours in going live, their audience grew along with their sales.
The pace of live selling meant they could start shifting cards that had sat in store for months, in seconds.
Once they nailed their show formats, they hired five streamers to go live every week, with one show regularly selling 1,000 singles.
Over 95,000 sales and 65,000 followers later, their main problem has changed from finding customers to not being able to source enough stock.
More hours live, more items sold. When streaming hours increased, sales followed. When hours dipped, so did volume.