Let members sell with Buy Now

By default, a classifieds site puts buyers and sellers in touch and they settle the deal themselves. With Buy Now, buyers can pay for an item right on the listing, and the money goes to the seller. Your marketplace becomes a shop where every member can sell.

Choose how sellers get paid

Buy Now needs a payment method that can pay each seller individually:

Method	Money goes to	Your commission	Best for
Stripe Connect	The seller’s Stripe account	Yes, a percentage and optionally a fixed fee	Most marketplaces. Card payments, sellers onboard in minutes.
PayPal	The seller’s PayPal account	No	Communities where everyone has PayPal.
Escrow.com	Held by Escrow.com until the buyer accepts the item	No	Expensive items such as vehicles and machinery.

You can switch on more than one. With the eWallet on, buyers pay sellers in wallet credit instead.

Switch on Buy Now

Set up one of the methods above: tick Activate Stripe Connect in Integrations › Stripe, tick Buy Now button in Integrations › Paypal, or switch on Integrations › Escrow.
Make sure the Price field is on in Listings › Settings › Form fields.
Optionally switch on Stock Control in Settings › Payments › Pay to post (see Stock control).

Every published listing with a price above zero now shows a Buy Now button with its price. Listings without a price, sold listings and (with stock control) listings with no stock left don’t.

With Stripe Connect, a seller must connect their Stripe account before buyers can pay them. Until then, their listings show Request safe payment, which emails the seller asking them to connect.

What the buyer does

The buyer clicks Buy Now on a listing.
On the checkout page they choose a quantity (with stock control) and, if the seller offers it, Shipping or Customer Pickup.
They pay with one of the methods you’ve switched on and come back to your site.

Buyers don’t have to be signed in: if they aren’t, they get a guest checkout where they can pay with Stripe or PayPal using just their email. Escrow.com and the Stripe escrow flow ask them to register first.

After payment:

the buyer gets the ads-purchased email with the order details, any buyer instructions and, for digital products, the download link;
the seller gets the ads-sold email and sees the sale in My Sales;
the purchase appears in the buyer’s My Payments, and in your Orders as Buy product.

Stock control

Stock control lets sellers sell several units of the same item. Switch it on in Settings › Payments, under Pay to post, and sellers get an In Stock field when they post. Buyers can then pick a quantity at checkout, each sale takes the quantity bought off the stock, and the listing is marked as Sold when the stock reaches zero. See Stock control for the details, including restocking.

Without stock control, a listing is marked as Sold after its first sale. Switch stock control on if your sellers have more than one of anything.

Make it a real shop

To…	Use
Charge for delivery or offer pickup	The `shipping` and `shipping_pickup` fields. See Shipping costs.
Tell buyers what happens next (delivery times, how to collect)	The `buyer_instructions` field, sent in the purchase email. See Special-purpose fields.
Sell files	Sell digital downloads.
Sell tickets	Sell event tickets.
Let sellers price in their own currency	The `currency` field. See Special-purpose fields.
Add VAT for VAT-registered sellers	VAT and taxes.
Pay sellers into a different PayPal address	The `paypalaccount` field. See PayPal.

Custom orders in Messages

When Custom orders is ticked in Addons › Messaging, sellers can send a buyer a payment request with their own price and description from a message thread about their listing (Create custom order). The buyer gets a Pay order link in the conversation. It’s handy when a price is negotiated. Custom orders are paid like Buy Now purchases and appear as Custom in Orders.

Custom orders work in the Mercury theme and older themes. The Nova theme’s Messages page doesn’t offer Create custom order.

Stripe and Stripe Connect — card payments and commissions.
PayPal — sellers paid through PayPal.
Escrow payments — protection for expensive items.
Checkout, payments and invoices for members — the buyer’s and seller’s side.