The Social Economy Markets are located in the urban area of Córdoba, Argentina, with 63 markets operating by 2023. These markets provide self-managed employment opportunities and vendor training, focusing on areas that enhance their initiatives, such as circular economy practices, finance, and digital marketing. Beyond their economic role, these spaces also serve as public platforms for social exchange and as reflections of neighborhood cultural identities.
Based on desk and field research, Feriante aims to support service development while preserving the organic nature of the markets' political processes by proposing a decentralized configuration of actors within a new organizational structure.
The system’s onboarding touchpoint is a mobile app that provides visitors and potential vendors with key information, such as schedules and market locations. Additionally, the app integrates three primary service processes into a single digital channel: registering for the service, reserving market stalls, and participating in markets—either independently or with assistance from organizers.
Market organizers can utilize the app to assist stallholders with periodic administrative and operational tasks, enabling more personalized support and improved marketplace oversight. Additionally, access to real-time data on vendor flow and characteristics can enhance the dynamism and adaptability of each market's governing policies.
Each market stall is uniquely numbered and features an access-exit QR code located on its table. Structurally, the stalls are equipped with tables and supports designed for displaying and storing merchandise, with optimized weight distribution to ensure stability in windy conditions. CNC manufacturing enables scalability, while the design facilitates easy assembly and component replacement.
The fieldwork carried out within the Social Economy Markets involved observations and 40 surveys conducted with stallholders across four of these markets, together with two interviews with an organizer and municipal staff.
Diversity was measured using the Shannon Index, which considers both the variety of product categories (richness) and the balance of their distribution (evenness). In contrast, market saturation emerged as a key indicator and significant barrier to incorporating new stallholders. While governing bodies of each market address saturation in different ways, accurately tracking it is critical for thorough market analysis.
Market saturation occurs when the demand for a good or service becomes so diluted that not all stallholders offering it can generate enough sales. This can lead to more competitive and even conflictive relationships between stallholders. In the Social Economy Markets, this is exemplified by clothing vendors, who accounted for 35% of the total in the sample.
For 20% of the stallholders in the sample, expanding to other markets serves as an adaptive strategy to meet shifting demand or to expand their business reach. Conversely, from the 80% of stallholders who do not participate in other markets, 25% cite administrative difficulties, while 15% point to a lack of information as reasons for not expanding to other markets.
From the previous blueprint, we highlight that organizers receive and process stallholders' entry requests via WhatsApp or Instagram. Additionally, each week they must confirm stallholders' participation and later track their attendance on market days. The interviewed organizer mentioned that she finds these tasks particularly tedious and time-consuming, noting other responsibilities like overseeing the market’s logistics and assisting stallholders with showcasing their products.
The following personas represent extreme cases of stallholders, based on age, product offerings, and how these factors might fundamentally affect their ability to expand participation. Both personas are women, as fieldwork confirmed that they constitute the majority of stallholders.
