Verity for online marketplaces
A marketplace fails in specific categories, not overall. Verity holds unfilled demand, seller supply and dispute cost against each one.
Verity runs the operation behind the marketplace. The platform itself stays where it is.
Verity / Marketplace
LiveActive sellers
2,140
Searches unfilled
19%
Disputes opened
460
Take rate after subsidy
6.1%
Needs attention
Illustrative figures. Verity shows your own marketplace in this shape.
How the business runs
A marketplace does not have a supply problem or a demand problem in general. It has both, in different categories, at the same time. Nineteen per cent of searches finding no matching supply, concentrated in four categories, is a specific acquisition target rather than a platform-wide concern.
The second characteristic is that seller onboarding and seller activity are different things. Thirty-eight per cent of sellers having listed once and stopped means the onboarding funnel is working and the activation one is not, and the two are usually measured together and therefore neither is understood.
The third is that quality problems concentrate. Six per cent of sellers producing forty-one per cent of disputes is an enforcement decision the marketplace can make deliberately, and disputes are expensive in support time, refunds and buyer retention.
The fourth is the real take rate. A headline rate of eleven per cent that becomes six after discounts, incentives and dispute cost is the actual economics, and it differs by category.
The fifth is that supply and demand have to be matched operationally, not just algorithmically — sellers need onboarding, categories need coverage, and gaps need someone accountable for closing them.
Verity holds unfilled demand, seller activation, dispute concentration and net take rate at the level where each is fixable.
What Verity calls these things
What gets in the way
Marketplace difficulties come from averaging two sides of a market that fail separately.
Unfilled demand is not measured by category
Searches that find nothing are aggregated and the specific gaps are invisible.
In Verity Unfilled demand is held by category and location, making supply acquisition targeted.
Onboarded sellers never become active
The funnel ends at registration and activity after it is not tracked.
In Verity Activation is a separate tracked stage with owners and follow-up.
Dispute cost is not attributed to sellers
Support handles disputes individually and the concentration is never seen.
In Verity Disputes carry seller, category and cause, so concentration is actionable.
Net take rate is unknown by category
Incentives and dispute costs are pooled centrally.
In Verity Subsidy and dispute cost are attributed, giving net take rate per category.
Seller quality signals are not acted on
Late fulfilment, cancellations and complaints exist as separate reports.
In Verity Quality signals aggregate to a seller record with enforcement states.
Category ownership is unclear
Nobody is accountable for the liquidity of a specific category.
In Verity Categories carry owners with supply, demand and quality targets.
The complete system
One system across supply, demand, quality and economics.
Inventory
Categories carry their listings, active sellers, coverage by location and unfilled demand.
Why it matters here Liquidity is category-level and so is the fix.
In practice Unfilled demand concentrated in four categories.
Relationships
Sellers carry onboarding stage, verification, first listing, activity level, quality signals and enforcement state.
Why it matters here Registration and activation are different problems with different owners.
In practice Thirty-eight per cent of sellers listed once and stopped.
Orders
Orders carry the seller, category, fulfilment performance, cancellation and outcome.
Why it matters here Buyer experience is produced by sellers the marketplace does not control.
In practice Fulfilment performance by seller and category.
Records
Disputes carry seller, buyer, category, cause, resolution, cost and enforcement action.
Why it matters here Dispute concentration is the most actionable quality signal a marketplace has.
In practice Six per cent of sellers producing forty-one per cent of disputes.
Control
One permission model and one audit trail, with commissions, discounts, incentives and dispute cost attributed per category and seller.
Why it matters here Headline take rate is not the economics the business runs on.
In practice Subsidy consuming almost five points of take rate.
Workflows
Seller acquisition, verification, first listing and activation run as tracked sequences with owners.
Why it matters here Closing a category gap is an operational project, not an algorithmic one.
In practice Sellers acquired against a category coverage target.
People
Staff carry category ownership, seller portfolios, dispute handling and targets.
Why it matters here A category without an owner has nobody closing its gap.
In practice Categories with coverage targets and named owners.
Reports and analytics
Unfilled demand, activation rates, dispute concentration, net take rate and category contribution come from the records.
Why it matters here Every marketplace decision is a category decision and needs category data.
In practice Net take rate by category after subsidy and disputes.
Verity AI
Verity AI answers from your own seller, listing, order and dispute records, respects permissions, and can create assigned follow-ups.
Why it matters here The useful questions are about where supply is missing and which sellers cost most.
In practice "Where is demand going unfilled?" returns the categories with volumes.
Communication
Activation follow-up, quality warnings and enforcement notices attach to the seller.
Why it matters here Enforcement is a sequence of recorded steps, not a single action.
In practice Warning and enforcement history per seller.
Locations
Supply and demand are held by location as well as category.
Why it matters here A category can be liquid in one city and empty in another.
In practice Category coverage by city against demand.
Suppliers
Fulfilment and service partners carry performance against the orders they touch.
Why it matters here Partner failures reach the buyer as marketplace failures.
In practice Delivery performance by partner and region.
Work in motion
These already happen. Recorded, liquidity becomes a managed number.
A gap without a named owner and a target does not close.
Activation is where most marketplace supply is actually lost.
Recording cause is what turns dispute volume into a seller decision.
Enforcement needs a documented sequence to be defensible.
Net take rate per category is what should drive investment.
Verity AI
Verity AI reads the same seller, listing, order and dispute records the marketplace creates as it operates. It answers from your own marketplace, respects permissions, and can turn an answer into acquisition or enforcement.
Verity / Ask
Verity AI only returns what the person asking has permission to see.
Without chasing
Each runs from the marketplace’s own records at the point the condition is met.
When
Unfilled demand rises in a category
When
A seller does not list after onboarding
When
A seller passes a dispute threshold
When
Category net take rate falls below target
When
A logistics partner misses performance in a region
What you can understand
Liquidity, quality and economics from operating records.
Verity records the operation behind the marketplace. The platform itself continues as it is.
One system, different ways of seeing it
Everyone works from the same records.
Founder
Where is the market working?
Liquidity by category, net take rate, seller activation, dispute concentration.
Category manager
What is my category short of?
Unfilled demand, supply coverage, seller activity, category economics.
Seller operations
Which sellers need attention?
Activation follow-up, quality signals, enforcement stages, portfolio performance.
Support lead
What is causing disputes?
Dispute causes, resolution times, cost, seller and partner patterns.
Where it is used
Unfilled demand held by category and location, so supply acquisition targets a specific gap rather than a general shortage.
First listing and subsequent activity tracked as their own stages, which is where most acquired supply is actually lost.
Disputes carrying seller, category and cause, so the small share of sellers producing most of the cost becomes an enforcement decision.
Incentives, discounts and dispute cost attributed by category, giving net economics rather than a headline commission rate.
Coverage, quality and economic targets held per category with a named owner, so gaps have someone accountable for closing them.
Warnings, improvement periods and restrictions recorded as a sequence, so enforcement is documented rather than abrupt.
Plain-language questions across supply, demand, quality and economics, with acquisition and enforcement raised in the same step.
Getting there
The marketplace platform continues and is mapped during implementation. Sellers with onboarding and quality history, category structures, order and dispute history, incentive records and partner performance are brought across.
Implementation runs about four weeks: discovery and mapping, configuration, migration, then an ongoing operations partnership.
Questions
Verity AI answers questions from your own seller, listing, order and dispute records: where demand is going unfilled by category and city, which sellers onboarded but never listed, which sellers account for the most disputes, what net take rate is by category. Each answer can become an acquisition target or an enforcement step.
Because a marketplace rarely has a single supply or demand problem. It has different failures in different categories at once, and platform-level averages hide the specific gap that a category owner could close.
Onboarding ends at registration and verification. Activation is the first listing and continued activity after it, and a large share of acquired sellers stop there — which is only visible when the two are tracked separately.
Disputes carry the seller, category and cause, so the concentration — typically a small share of sellers producing a large share of cost — becomes an enforcement and quality decision rather than a support workload.
Commissions, discounts, incentives and dispute cost are attributed per category and seller, which produces net take rate rather than the headline commission the marketplace advertises.
Quality signals aggregate to the seller record, and warnings, improvement periods and restrictions are recorded as a documented sequence with authority, which is what makes enforcement defensible.
No. The marketplace platform continues as it is. Verity holds the operation around it — sellers, categories, quality, disputes, enforcement and economics.
About four weeks: discovery and mapping of category structures, seller lifecycle stages, dispute causes and incentive types, configuration, migration of sellers and history, then an ongoing operations partnership.
It names the categories that need supply. Tell us how liquidity is measured today.