I’m getting signups but no listings on my marketplace (189 users) — what am I missing?
I built a platform called ProsperityHub where people can:
List services (like TaskRabbit)
Rent out items (like Airbnb for tools, equipment, etc.)
Sell locally
The idea is to help people make money from things they already own instead of using multiple platforms.
So far I have around 189 users, and I’m running paid ads to bring people in.
Here’s the problem:
People are signing up, but almost no one creates a listing.
What I’ve tried:
Changed my ad conversion goal to “listing created”
Simplified my campaign structure
Focused more on attracting providers instead of general users
Still seeing signups and some Stripe onboarding, but very few listings created.
I’m trying to figure out if this is:
- A trust issue
- Too much friction in the listing flow
- Or the wrong audience
Would really appreciate honest feedback:
https://prosperityhub.app/blog/make-money-locally
This feels less like a traffic problem and more like an activation problem.
People signing up but not creating listings usually means the value is not clear enough at that exact moment, or the effort feels higher than the immediate benefit.
I am working in a different space, but I have seen a similar pattern. Users will complete a low effort action like signup, but drop off when the first “real” step requires decision making or commitment.
Things like:
What should I list
Is it worth it
Will anyone actually use it
Even small uncertainty can stop action.
Curious, where do most users drop off right now? Is it before starting a listing, or somewhere inside the flow?
That’s a great point — and I initially thought the same.
After digging deeper into my data over the last few days, I realized something important:
The issue isn’t actually activation yet — it’s happening earlier in the funnel.
I’m getting clicks, but almost no one is signing up.
When I looked at the search terms coming from my ads, most of the traffic was things like “make money online” or “easy money,” which isn’t really aligned with what my platform does (local services, rentals, selling items).
So right now I’m focusing on fixing traffic quality and intent first — making sure I’m attracting people who are actually trying to offer services or list something locally.
That said, your point still stands for the next stage.
Once I start getting consistent signups, I fully expect those same questions you mentioned (“what should I list?”, “is it worth it?”) to become the next bottleneck — which is why I’ve been improving the listing flow and messaging ahead of time.
Really appreciate you calling that out — it helped me think through where the real drop-off is happening.
That makes sense, and honestly the search terms themselves sound like a strong signal about expectation mismatch rather than just traffic quantity.
Someone searching for “easy money” is probably entering with a very different mental model than someone actively looking to offer local services or manage listings.
So even before activation, there is already a behavioral mismatch happening upstream.
It is interesting though because this kind of filtering probably makes later activation insights much more reliable too. Otherwise you end up diagnosing onboarding behavior from users who were never aligned with the core workflow in the first place.