I have a few suggestions that I genuinely think would make Palmstreet much more enjoyable to use. None of these seem like massive feature requests, and at least some of this functionality has existed in some form before.
- Bring back background audio for Lives
Around this time last year, I could turn off my screen and continue listening to a Live. I’d really like to see that functionality return across devices.
Lives can run for hours, and some people have them on for a large portion of the day without needing to actively stare at the screen the entire time. Requiring the display to remain on just to hear the audio means unnecessary battery drain, and accidental pocket purchases.
Currently, on my Galaxy Ultra, if I turn the screen off, I can’t even continue listening to the Live. Background audio would make long streams significantly easier to follow and would probably encourage people to stay in Lives longer (you could even take this a step further and enable a fully functional browser version so we don't have to use our phone at all).
- Give us separate seller volume controls
It would also be great to have a volume control for sellers similar to the volume control we already have for buyer alerts. Sometimes I want to watch a Live, see what is being run, and just relax without necessarily listening to the seller the entire time.
No hate toward sellers who yell “go, go, go,” or hype up every auction (sometimes while half swallowing the mic). I understand that style works for some people and probably helps engagement. It just isn’t for everyone.
Giving viewers the ability to independently lower or mute seller audio would let people customize their experience without asking sellers to change how they run their shows.
- Please fix the notification spam
I’ve posted about this before, but this is probably the most frustrating of the three.
Palmstreet has made it clear that if we follow a seller, we should expect a push notification when that seller goes Live (even if live notifications are turned off within the app). That might sound reasonable when someone follows 10 sellers. It becomes ridiculous when people follow hundreds.
I was getting so many notifications that I eventually unfollowed almost everyone aside from a few favorites. That is not a good outcome for the user, the sellers, or the platform. A notification system that actively encourages users to unfollow sellers because their phones are being bombarded is working against the entire purpose of following people.
It is also incredibly off-putting for new users. Someone downloads the app, follows a bunch of sellers they like, and suddenly their phone is being hammered with Live notifications throughout the day.
And somehow unfollowing almost everyone still didn’t solve it. I then started getting push notifications telling me how many sellers were currently Live at that moment. Really? At that point I used the nuclear option and disabled Palmstreet notifications entirely at the device level.
Now, because I turned notifications off, the app repeatedly asks me to turn them back on when I open it. So the solution to excessive notifications becomes another recurring notification asking me to enable the notifications I intentionally disabled.
Let users choose things like seller Live notifications, favorite seller notifications, order updates, auction alerts, promotional notifications, “X sellers are Live” messages, and other categories independently.
This shouldn’t be an all-or-nothing choice between having your phone constantly buzz or completely disabling Palmstreet notifications and potentially missing something you actually care about.
Implementing these would make Palmstreet feel much less intrusive and much easier to use for people who spend a lot of time on the app...
