Art of Život: a marketplace that manages its own sellers
A multi-seller marketplace on WooCommerce. The core with seller accounts, product ownership, split payments and a payout ledger runs in a test environment. The project has not launched yet.
There was a brand, but no sales
We knew Art of Život from working on the brand. At that point there were no sales anywhere: the client wanted to open a space for several sellers and we were starting from zero, with no shop, no accounts and no established way of paying people out.
The brief was to open sales to more brands without the client having to run the catalogue for all of them. Every seller needed their own account, a view of their orders and a reliable payout of their share.
Six parts of the marketplace
A marketplace on WooCommerce
Catalogue, orders, sellers and payouts all run in one system the client already knows.
Product ownership
Every product has its seller. From an order it is then possible to work out which part of the payment belongs to whom.
Split payments
At checkout the payment is split between the operator and the seller according to the configured rules.
An overview for operations
One screen that says at a glance how many sellers are active and which transfers went out.
Onboarding through Stripe
The seller goes through Stripe verification and gets a connected account that receives the transfers.
A payout ledger
A payout ledger with history and states, plus a reconciliation run that works out discrepancies against Stripe.
Two decisions about running it
Our own extension instead of an off-the-shelf plugin
We went through the ready-made marketplace plugins and none of them handled the commission and payout model Art of Život runs on. Our own extension means more work on our side, but the client does not have to bend the business model to the tool.
Approval as a safeguard
The seller adds the product, but only the client publishes it. One step of delay is the price of keeping an item with no photos or the wrong price out of the catalogue. This part is being finished now.
Four stages
Brand and plan
Once the brand was done the client came with the marketplace. We went through the business model, the commissions and who would manage what.
The marketplace core
We deployed the core with sellers and product ownership. Registration with approval is in progress.
Payments and payouts
We connected Stripe with split payments, the ledger and a regular reconciliation run that works out discrepancies.
Operation and additions
After launch we will add what is missing in practice, not what was on the original feature list.
Technology
The marketplace layer is our extension on top of WooCommerce; payments go through Stripe.
The scope of the solution
The core runs, the rest is being finished
We are building the marketplace as a thin core with separate extensions, not as one large plugin. The core holds sellers, product ownership, split payments and the payout ledger. The Stripe adapter handles seller onboarding, transfers and refunds.
Art of Život currently runs on a test environment. We are finishing seller registration with two-step approval, the seller’s own page and shipping configured per seller. Once those are done, the shop moves into normal operation.
Working on something similar?
Tell us how you handle the offering and the payouts today. We reply within two business days.
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