On a marketplace, one customer payment often belongs to several parties: the seller who made the sale and the platform that takes a fee. Marketplace payment processing takes the payment once, holds it, then splits it and pays each seller their share on a set schedule.
A marketplace payment platform has to do three things a normal store does not: verify each seller before they can be paid (identity and business checks), route and time payouts to many accounts, and handle refunds and chargebacks that belong to one seller but were paid through the platform.
Marketplaces effectively take on some of the responsibilities of a payments provider, so choosing infrastructure built for split payouts and seller onboarding is essential.
Common questions
- How do marketplace payments work?
- The buyer pays the marketplace once. The platform keeps its fee, and the rest is paid out to the seller, often after a short hold so refunds and disputes can be covered.
- What should a marketplace payment solution include?
- Seller onboarding with identity and business verification, split payments, scheduled payouts to many sellers, and clear handling of refunds and chargebacks per seller.
- Is a marketplace the same as a payment facilitator?
- No. A payment facilitator onboards other businesses under its own merchant account so they can accept payments. A marketplace sells goods or services from many sellers on its own platform. Some marketplaces use a facilitator model to pay their sellers, but the two are different roles.