Help Centre

Let members sell with Buy Now

Turn listings into a shop. Buyers pay sellers straight from a listing with Stripe Connect, PayPal or Escrow.com, with stock, quantities and shipping.

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.

Selling items with Buy Now, checkout and stock is part of the Professional and Marketplace plans.

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 (see Commission and service fees) Most marketplaces. Card payments, sellers onboard in minutes.
PayPal The seller’s PayPal account No Communities where everyone has PayPal.
Escrow.com (Marketplace plan) 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

  1. Set up one of the methods above: tick Activate Stripe Connect in Add-ons › Stripe, tick Buy Now button in Add-ons › PayPal, or switch on Add-ons › Escrow.
  2. Make sure the Price field is on in Listings › Settings › Form fields.
  3. 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. Nor do listings that take bookings, and a listing with quantity pricing is bought through the cart.

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

  1. The buyer clicks Buy Now on a listing.
  2. On the checkout page they choose a quantity (with stock control) and, if the seller offers it, Shipping or Customer Pickup.
  3. They pay with one of the methods you’ve switched on and come back to your site. With Stripe, they pay by card right on the checkout page: see the card form at checkout.

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. The exception is a listing sold in options: a buyer choosing an option leaves it on sale, until the seller marks it as sold.

Shopping cart

On the Marketplace plan, with Stripe Connect and the Nova theme, you can add a shopping cart: buyers click Add to cart under Buy Now, collect items from several sellers and pay for everything in one card payment, which Stripe splits between the sellers. Buy Now keeps working for buyers who want a single item. See Shopping cart and one-payment checkout.

Make it a real shop

To… Use
Charge for delivery or offer pickup The shipping and shipping_pickup fields. See Shipping costs.
Let buyers pay several sellers at once The shopping cart (Marketplace plan).
Sell sizes, colours or other options Product options, bought through the cart.
Ship a seller’s items together, with free shipping over an amount Shipping profiles, in the cart.
Let sellers run discount codes Coupons on sales, in the cart.
Put a listing on sale, give quantity discounts or sell bundles Sale prices, quantity discounts and bundles. Buy Now charges the sale price.
Show carriers’ live shipping rates Live shipping rates with Shippo, in the cart (Marketplace plan).
Add a service fee paid by the buyer Commission and service fees (Marketplace plan).
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: switch on Digital downloads on the Commission on sales page. It shows with Buy Now through Stripe Connect, PayPal or Escrow.com.
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 Add-ons › 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.

Updated 27 October 2026 · Suggest an edit