Following a vendor

What this feature does

A vendor follow subscribes a customer to launch and listing-update activity across that vendor's catalog.

This guide describes the behavior implemented by Mallello, the people allowed to use it, and the operational checks that keep it dependable.

Detailed workflow

1. Choose Follow on a vendor profile or vendor card.
2. The API creates an idempotent VendorFollow for the signed-in user.
3. When the vendor launches or materially updates a listing, eligible followers are selected.
4. Messages enter the outbox and delivery history.
5. Unfollow removes future optional vendor notifications.

Rules and permissions

• Following never exposes the follower list publicly.
• A vendor cannot directly export follower email addresses.
• Marketing consent, unsubscribe state, and notification class are enforced before delivery.
• The UI derives followed state from the persisted relationship, not local browser state alone.

Failure handling and edge cases

• A follow that visually resets after navigation indicates failed persistence or stale session/cache and should be diagnosed through the relationship API.
• Deleting a vendor must safely retire associated relationships.
• High-volume launches require batched sending and provider-rate awareness.