How It Started
One evening I opened my Instagram DMs and realized I had around 30 active conversations that day. People asking about prices, sizes, colors, delivery. Genuine interest everywhere.
Almost none of them bought anything.
I asked a friend to take an honest look at my page. Sent him the link and got back: “Hey! Everything looks great, the page is really cool.”
That wasn’t the answer I needed. Because if the page was fine and the product was fine — something else was broken. I just didn’t know what.
So I started tracking my conversations. Which questions came up most often, how long the gaps between messages were, how much time the whole purchase process actually took.
Why Buyers Really Disappear
Buyers weren’t leaving because they changed their mind. They were leaving because buying felt inconvenient.
Here’s what I mean. Think about purchasing something on Amazon or any other marketplace. You see the product, tap buy, fill in your details and address, get a confirmation. Done in a few minutes.
Now think about buying from an Instagram seller. You send a message. You wait. You ask another question. You wait again. At some point you’re asked to type your contact details, delivery address, size, and color — manually — into a chat window.
It’s complicated and slow. It doesn’t feel like shopping.
People message you on their commute, during lunch, half-watching TV. That interest is real — but it’s short-lived. Every minute of waiting erodes it. By the time you reply, they’re already gone.
What I Tried — And Why It Became a Startup Idea
My first instinct was to build a website. Good websites build trust, and trust was clearly part of the problem.
But the more I looked into it, the more I realized — this wasn’t just my problem. Thousands of sellers face the exact same thing every day. And most of them don’t want to spend money on a developer, can’t code, and don’t need a full e-commerce platform with hundreds of settings they’ll never use.
I researched the market. Link-bio apps are built for influencers, not sellers — great for collecting links, useless for real orders. Website builders require complicated setup. Marketplaces are perfect for cold traffic, but they take a big cut of your revenue as commission. And in many countries, they simply don’t exist.
What I actually needed was simple: a clean catalog page where a buyer can choose a product and place an order — and the order arrives in my messenger (WhatsApp or Telegram) as one structured message. One message that turns chaos into a sale.
I looked for it. Couldn’t find it. So I started building it myself.
Lavka — A Platform for DM Sellers
The idea is straightforward: you create a catalog, share one link, and buyers can browse your products, choose their options, and place an order — without a single back-and-forth message. The buyer places the order and it arrives in your messenger as one structured message, ready to fulfill.
No code. No expensive development.
The same chat you already use — just without the chaos before every order.
Press enter or click to view image in full sizeLavka catalog page mockup — mobile store for DM sellers.
The project is still in development, but I’m building it in public — with input from real sellers. If you want to be among the first to test it and help shape the product:
lavka.global — join the waitlist
Telegram — follow the build, suggest features, get early demo access
What Actually Helps Right Now
While I was figuring all of this out, I tried a lot of small changes to my selling process. Here’s what actually moved the needle.
Reply fast — and keep it short. If you reply an hour later, you’re no longer talking to a customer — you’re talking to their doubt. Speed isn’t just good manners, it’s the only way to hold someone’s attention in a world of endless notifications.
Put all key information in one place. Price, sizes, colors, shipping, payment — buyers shouldn’t have to ask about any of this. If they’re messaging you for basic information, that information is buried where it shouldn’t be. When everything is visible upfront, most questions simply never get asked.
Use social proof constantly. Small sellers don’t have marketplace ratings or return guarantees. What they do have is evidence that real people bought and were happy. Customer photos, reposted stories, even a casual line like “last batch sold out in four days” — all of it works as a trust signal. Use it all the time.
Follow up — gently. Most disappearances aren’t permanent. Buyers are just people — someone called, things got busy, they forgot. A message the next day brings many of them back.
The Bottom Line
I don’t believe people just change their mind. Each of them simply hit a moment of friction — and quietly moved on.
That’s the nature of impulse purchases. The decision to buy happens fast — and so does the decision to quit.
You don’t need a big budget to fix this. You don’t need to rebuild your entire social media presence. You need a process that respects the buyer’s time and makes the decision feel easy — from the first message to the confirmed order.
That’s what I’m working on with Lavka. And honestly — I’d love to build it together with people who know this problem from the inside. Because they’ve lived it the same way I did.
If that’s you — come find me at lavka.global.
Building Lavka — a catalog and ordering platform for sellers in messengers. Waitlist open at lavka.global