How buying works
From finding an item to confirming it arrived — and why your payment is protected the whole way through.
Buying on MerkatoHQ works like any online store, with one important difference: your payment is held safely in the middle until you confirm the item arrived. The seller does not get paid the moment you check out — they get paid when you say the deal went through. That is what makes it safe to buy a one-of-a-kind item from someone you have never met.
The five steps
- Find an item. Browse or search the marketplace. Every listing is a single, real item with a photo and a fixed price — there is no bidding and no order book.
- Buy it. Click Buy, and pay with your card. Your total is the sticker price plus a small processing surcharge (see Fees explained). You have a short window to complete payment before the order is released back to the marketplace.
- We hold the money in escrow. Once your payment succeeds, the funds are held — not sent to the seller. The listing is marked sold so no one else can buy it.
- The seller ships the item. The seller arranges delivery or hand-off. You will be notified as the order progresses.
- You confirm receipt. When the item is in your hands and it is what you expected, you hit Confirm receipt and the money is released to the seller. Done.
Where your money sits in between: during steps 3–5 the funds are held by our payment processor, not spendable by the seller and not sitting in a MerkatoHQ bank account. Releasing them is a deliberate action — yours.
Why you, not a timer, release the money
MerkatoHQ does not auto-release your payment after some number of days. The money stays held until you confirm receipt or a dispute is resolved. If an item never shows up, doing nothing keeps your money protected — you are never on a clock that quietly pays the seller behind your back.
If something goes wrong — the item never arrives, or it is not as described — do not confirm receipt. Open a dispute instead, and our team steps in. See Refunds & disputes.
What you pay
Your card is charged the item price plus a processing surcharge (a flat percentage plus a small fixed fee) that covers card-processing costs. The surcharge is always shown separately at checkout before you pay — no surprises. The full breakdown, with worked examples, is on the Fees explained page.
New to MerkatoHQ? You will want a secure account first. We support passkeys and new-device alerts out of the box — see Account security.