Messaging between members

Members can reach a seller in two ways, and you choose which one your site uses:

• By email (the default). The Send Message button on a listing opens a contact form. Your site emails the message to the seller, and the seller replies from their own mailbox, straight to the buyer’s email address.
• Through messaging. The same button starts a private conversation on your site. Both members read and answer it in their Messages inbox, and neither sees the other’s email address. Your site emails them a short notification for each new message, with a link back to the conversation.

Messaging keeps the conversation on your marketplace, protects members’ email addresses and lets you add price offers. The email form works for visitors who don’t have an account.

Switch messaging on

1. In the admin panel, go to Addons and open Messaging.
2. If you want sellers to send payment requests from a conversation, tick Custom orders first (see below).
3. Click Enable.

After you change Custom orders on a site where messaging is already on, check the button at the top of the page. Disable means messaging is on; if it says Enable, click it to switch messaging back on.

What changes when messaging is on

	Email contact form	Messaging
Who can contact a seller	Anyone, unless you switch on Require Login to Contact in Listings › Settings	Signed-in members only. Visitors who click Send Message are asked to sign in first.
Where replies happen	In each member’s own mailbox	In Messages, inside each member’s account
Email addresses	The seller sees the buyer’s email address	Stay private on both sides
Attachments	Buyers can attach a file if Upload file is on in Listings › Settings	Not available (the Upload file option is hidden)
Price offers	No	Buyers can add a price to their message if Price on Contact Form is on in Listings › Settings
Contact from a member’s profile	Sent by email	Starts a direct conversation

Members can’t contact each other

If buyers say there’s no way to reach a seller, or sellers never hear from buyers, check these in order:

What you notice	Check
No Send Message button on any listing	Switch on Contact Form in Listings › Settings › Listing details and click Save changes. See Listing page and form fields.
No button on one listing	The button only shows on published listings. A listing that is waiting for approval, unpaid or expired has none.
Visitors click the button and are asked to sign in	That’s expected with messaging on, or with Require Login to Contact switched on. Visitors need an account to send a message.
Buyers send messages, sellers never get them	With the email form, the message goes to the seller’s email address: see Emails aren’t arriving. With messaging, it’s in the seller’s Messages inbox, with a notification email.
You’d rather members talk by phone or WhatsApp	Switch on the Phone field, or the WhatsApp, Skype and Telegram buttons (below).

After changing a setting, open a listing in a private window to see what visitors see.

How members use their inbox

Members open Messages from their account menu. The inbox has four views:

View	What it holds
All	Every active conversation.
Unread	Conversations with messages they haven’t read yet.
Archive	Conversations they have archived.
Spam	Conversations they marked as spam.

Inside a conversation, the member writes in the box at the bottom and clicks Reply. The Actions menu has:

• Archive — moves the conversation to Archive.
• Spam — moves it to Spam.
• Delete — removes it from the member’s inbox.

These actions only affect the member’s own inbox, not the other person’s.

When a buyer contacts the seller about the same listing again, the message joins their existing conversation instead of starting a new one. If the seller has archived or deleted that conversation, a new one starts. If the seller marked it as spam or deleted it, new messages from that buyer arrive in it silently, without an email.

Notification emails

Each new message sends one of these email templates, which you can reword:

Template key	Sent when
messaging-ad-contact	A buyer starts a conversation about a listing.
messaging-user-contact	Someone sends a direct message from a member’s profile.
messaging-reply	Someone replies in an existing conversation.

The email contains the message and a Read and reply button that signs the member in and opens the conversation.

Custom orders: agree a price, then pay

With Custom orders ticked, the seller of a listing sees Create custom order in the conversation. They enter a description and an amount, and the buyer receives it as a message with a Pay order link. The buyer pays through your site’s payment gateway at the agreed price.

This suits negotiated sales: a buyer offers less, the seller accepts, and the custom order turns the agreement into a payment. You need payments set up first: see Take payments on your marketplace and Let members sell with Buy Now. Custom orders work in the Mercury theme and older themes; the Nova theme’s Messages page doesn’t offer Create custom order.

Spam protection

Messages to sellers go through the same checks as your other forms: captcha, Akismet and, when it is on, the blacklist, which stops members marked as spammers from sending anything. On top of that, one visitor can contact at most 20 listings every ten minutes, and sending the same message about the same listing twice within ten minutes only delivers it once.

WhatsApp, Skype and Telegram buttons

You can also show buttons that open a chat with the seller in WhatsApp, Skype or Telegram. They work with or without messaging. Each is a user custom field with a reserved name:

1. Go to Settings › User Custom Fields and click New field.
2. Enter the Name whatsapp, skype or telegram (exactly that, in lower case) and a label members will understand, such as WhatsApp number.
3. Switch on Show on sign-up if new members should fill it in when they register, and save.

Members enter their WhatsApp number (with country code), Skype name or Telegram username in their profile. In the Nova theme, the seller box on their listings then shows a WhatsApp, Skype or Telegram button (other themes may show only some of them). These chats happen outside your site, so you can’t see or moderate them.

For public discussion rather than private messages, use the forum.

Related guides

• Listing page and form fields — the contact form and price options.
• Email templates — reword the message notifications.
• Let members sell with Buy Now — payments between buyers and sellers, and custom orders.
• Fight spam — every tool against spam.