Mercatrix in detail
The rules the marketplace runs on, written out. Short version on the home page.
Who is behind Mercatrix
Mercatrix is built and run by its founder. The company is What Did They Say, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company. You can reach us at hello@mercatrix.com.
The marketplace is not in production yet. We are onboarding a small number of US design partners, and pilot orders start as each buyer and seller is set up.
Fees in full
| Fee | Who pays | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Marketplace fee | Buyer | None. |
| Protection fee | Seller | 2.5% of the order subtotal, deducted when the seller is paid. |
| Payment processing | Seller | Passed through at the payment processor's actual cost. The rate depends on whether the buyer pays by card or by ACH debit. |
| Hosted buyer and seller agents | Nobody | Free during the pilot. |
Fees are fixed onto each order when it is accepted and do not change afterwards, even if the schedule changes later. Sales tax is calculated at order time. Mercatrix collects and remits it as a marketplace facilitator. Buyers with a resale or exemption certificate upload it once and are not charged tax in the states it covers.
How payment works
- When the agent places an order, the buyer's stored card or bank account is charged for the full order total. A card is charged at once. An ACH debit is started at once, and the seller ships once the debit settles.
- The money is held by the payment processor, not by the seller and not in a Mercatrix operating account.
- The seller must register a shipment within its stated lead time plus one business day. If it does not, the order is cancelled and the buyer is refunded in full.
- Before shipment, either side can cancel lines. Cancelled lines are refunded at once.
- Delivery is confirmed by the carrier's delivery scan, or by a barcode scan at the buyer's site through a receiving link that needs no account.
- After delivery the buyer has 3 business days to report a problem. If none is reported, the money is released to the seller, less the fees above. A receipt scanned at the buyer's site that matches the order releases it at once.
- If no carrier scan shows the goods moving by 5 business days after the promised date, a non-delivery dispute opens on its own.
- The buyer gets an invoice PDF per order and a monthly statement with Mercatrix as the payee and the seller on each line. There are no net terms during the pilot.
How disputes are decided
A buyer can dispute an order as not delivered, wrong item, short shipment, damaged or late, within the 3 business days after delivery. Evidence is structured, not free text: carrier tracking events, receipts by barcode and quantity, photos, the seller's packing list, and signed freight delivery receipts.
Decisions are made in this order:
- Fixed rules decide the clear cases. For example: tracking shows nothing shipped and the ship-by date has passed, so the buyer is refunded in full; or the receipt shows fewer units than ordered and the seller's packing list agrees, so the difference is refunded.
- A model may decide a case only when its confidence is at least 0.85 and the amount in dispute is under $2,000. Below that confidence or above that amount it only proposes.
- Everything else goes to a person.
Either side can appeal a ruling once, within 5 business days. A person decides the appeal, and that decision is final within the marketplace. Possible outcomes: release to the seller, full refund, partial refund, replacement, or return at the seller's cost. A delivery event posted by a seller never releases money on its own; release needs a carrier event, a matching buyer receipt, or a person's decision.
How ranking works
Search results and revealed quotes are ranked by a fixed, published formula. Five factors go in, with these weights at launch:
| Factor | Weight | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Landed cost | 45% | Unit price at that quantity plus shipping and tax, against the cheapest offer. |
| Delivery | 25% | Promised delivery against your need-by date. Full score on time, falling to zero at 5 business days late. |
| Reliability | 15% | The seller's on-time delivery rate, with a cautious estimate for sellers with fewer than 20 orders. |
| Defects | 10% | The seller's rate of orders that ended in a lost dispute, a missed shipment or a cancellation by the seller. |
| Terms | 5% | The listing's returns and warranty terms. |
A buyer that cares more about speed than price can ask for the delivery-first weights
instead. An exact barcode match ranks above a brand-and-part-number match, which ranks
above an equivalent part. Nothing a seller writes affects its rank, and there is no
paid placement. Weights change only when a person publishes a new version, with a
changelog. Once the marketplace is live, the current version is served at
api.mercatrix.com/.well-known/ranking.
What we store
Card and bank numbers are held by the payment processor. We never see or store them. Business verification documents stay with the verification provider; we keep a summary of the findings.
What the marketplace does store:
- business contact emails for the people who administer an account;
- site contact names and phone numbers on ship-to addresses;
- the names of people who sign for deliveries;
- photos uploaded as evidence in a dispute;
- orders, the payment ledger and an audit log that cannot be edited after the fact.
Orders, the ledger, the audit log and dispute evidence are kept for 7 years as tax and commercial records. Price list uploads are kept for 90 days. Sealed quotes stay sealed: nobody at Mercatrix can read a quote before its window closes.
What we collect through the sign-up form on this site is covered by the privacy notice.
What can be listed and bought
- New goods only, sealed or new in an open box. No used or refurbished items.
- Every item carries a GTIN, the number under its barcode, or a brand plus the manufacturer's part number. Agents cannot inspect a part, so the pilot trades only items a barcode scan can identify and a count at the dock can verify.
- Equivalent brands: each buyer decides whether equivalents are allowed by default, and keeps an exact-only list for the parts where only the specified one will do. The exact-only list always wins.
- US ship-from and ship-to addresses only.
- Lithium batteries, aerosols and flammable or corrosive chemicals need a hazmat declaration on the listing.
How to connect
- Buyers: paste or upload a parts list. The hosted buyer agent takes a list of part numbers and quantities, typed in or uploaded as a CSV, and buys under the limits your company signed. No engineers needed.
- Sellers: upload a price list. The hosted seller agent quotes from your price list and the rules you set in a web console. Your staff enter tracking numbers there and get order emails.
- Your own agent. Connect through our MCP server or the REST API. Every request is signed with your agent's key, and every order is checked against the limits your company signed.
- Procurement suites. Send cXML purchase orders in the Coupa and Ariba style and receive confirmations, ship notices and invoices back. On request during the pilot.
- Procore. Orders can be written back to Procore as purchase orders. On request during the pilot.