Capability
Marketplaces that survive their own growth.
Vendors, commissions, payouts and fulfilment are where marketplaces break. We build them as first-class parts of the system, not as plugins fighting each other in production.
The problem
A marketplace is a financial system.
A storefront is easy to draw and hard to settle. Every order splits money between parties, carries tax treatment that depends on jurisdiction, and can be reversed months after it was paid out.
Most platforms handle the first hundred orders comfortably. The trouble starts when a vendor disputes a statement, a return arrives after settlement, or the catalogue grows past the point where a single search index can rank it honestly.
Deliverables
What we build.
Six pieces of work, scoped in discovery and delivered in two-week increments.
Vendor onboarding
Applications, documents, verification states, and the rules that differ by category.
Catalogue and variants
Options, bundles and price rules that survive a real merchandising team.
Commission and payouts
A ledger entry per order, settlement schedules, and statements a vendor can reconcile without a support ticket.
Order orchestration
Split shipments, partial cancellations and returns, with the money traced at every step.
Storefront and checkout
Fast, accessible, and honest about stock and delivery dates.
Operator analytics
Gross merchandise value, take rate, refund rate and vendor health in one view.
Approach
How we work on it.
Three working rules that shape the build, and the stack we usually reach for.
The ledger before the storefront
Money movement is modelled first. A checkout that cannot reconcile is a liability, not a feature.
Vendor-facing by default
Every number the operator sees, the vendor should be able to see too, with the same arithmetic and the same date range.
Built for a hundred thousand SKUs
Search, media and catalogue queries are designed for scale on day one, not retrofitted after the first slow month.
Typical stack
Commerce platforms are a starting point, not a religion. We extend what is solid and replace what will not carry payouts, tax or returns.
How it starts
We begin with the money: commission rules, settlement timing and refund policy. The storefront follows once those are agreed.
Scope this workRelated
Usually built alongside.
Most engagements combine two or three capabilities; these are the pairs we see most.