How the marketplace works
Shops hold listings, buyers place orders, and four different people or services can be the one who actually brings it.
The four things everything is made of
Almost every question about the marketplace resolves to one of four objects, and knowing which one you are looking at usually answers it.
- A shop
- A page with its own link, its own name and its own catalogue. One person can own several; each is a separate storefront rather than a filter over one big list.
- A listing
- One thing for sale: a price, photos, how many there are, and the ways it can reach a buyer. It becomes buyable the moment it is published.
- An order
- One buyer's commitment to one shop. It carries the money, the delivery choice, and the status both sides watch.
- A run
- Someone driving. Either bringing a shop's order to a buyer, or shopping a shelf on a buyer's behalf.
Where the money actually goes
When a buyer pays by card, we take the payment and pass it on to the seller's payout account, keeping our fee from the seller's share. For sellers in the United States the charge shows under the shop's own name on the card statement.
For a buyer, that means our fee on the sale is never a line on your total. You pay for the goods and for delivery — and if a courier brings it, a small service fee, shown separately at checkout before you pay.
For a seller, it means you cannot list before payouts are set up. There is nowhere for the money to land, and a listing nobody can pay for is worse than no listing at all.
The people involved
- A buyer browses, fills a bag, and pays.
- A seller runs a shop, lists things, and decides how they travel.
- A runner is a community member who drives — either on a shop's behalf, or shopping a store for a buyer.
- A courier is a third-party delivery company a shop can book through us, where that service exists.
Where things live in the app
- Market
- What people near you and in your circles are selling.
- Bag
- What you mean to buy, before any money moves.
- Orders
- Both sides of every deal — what you bought, and what people bought from you.
- Your shop
- The page buyers land on, and the link you send them.
- Setup (in Market)
- Payout setup, and the one place that tells you whether money can reach you.
Related
What it costs — every fee in one place
Five percent plus a small fixed amount on a sale, taken out of the seller's side. Delivery is priced separately and says so.
The bag, and paying
The bag is a durable list across as many shops as you like; nothing is charged and nothing is reserved until checkout.
Opening a shop
A shop is a page with its own link and its own catalogue. Set up payouts first — you cannot list without them.