Not a vague promise of "secure payments," a specific, checkable sequence: a deposit percentage, a payment window, a cancellation fee, and a release point tied to delivery. Here's exactly how each piece works.
5%
Charged only once a bid is accepted, not when it's placed, so browsing and bidding themselves cost nothing.
24 hrs
The deposit link expires if unpaid within the window, protecting the seller from a deal held open indefinitely by an accepted but unfunded bid.
0.5%
Applies if a buyer withdraws after paying the deposit; the remainder is refunded within 5-10 business days.
Nothing is charged when a bid is placed, negotiation and browsing cost nothing. Once a bid is accepted, a deposit, 5% of the deal value by default, is charged through Stripe, with a 24-hour window to complete it before the link expires and the deal lapses. That deposit is held, not passed straight through to the seller, which is the core of what "escrow-protected" actually means in this context.
From there, both parties coordinate pickup or delivery through the platform. Funds are released to the seller only once that delivery or pickup is confirmed, not automatically at the moment of payment. That gap, between paying and releasing, is the entire point, it's what protects a buyer from paying in full for material that's never actually handed over.
A buyer who pays the deposit and then withdraws doesn't get it back in full, a cancellation fee, 0.5% by default, applies, and the remaining balance is refunded within 5-10 business days. That's a genuine cost to backing out after committing funds, not a free reservation option, which matters directly to a seller who took a listing off the market expecting the deal to close.
The 24-hour deposit window plays a related role earlier in the process: an accepted bid that never gets funded simply expires rather than leaving a seller's listing tied up indefinitely by a buyer who changed their mind before ever paying anything.
Payment and delivery rarely happen at the exact same moment in any physical goods transaction, and that gap is exactly where trust problems usually occur, a buyer wondering if paying first means the material shows up, a seller wondering if shipping first means they get paid. Tying release to confirmed delivery or pickup, rather than to the moment of payment, closes that gap for both sides at once, without requiring either party to simply trust the other's word.
Escrow protection reduces payment risk, it doesn't eliminate every possible dispute. A disagreement over grade or condition on delivery is a separate issue from whether the payment itself is secure, and it's handled through the platform's dispute process, not by the deposit mechanic alone. Being specific about what escrow actually covers, payment security, rather than every possible thing that could go wrong in a deal, is the same honesty this page opened with.
It's a real payment flow, not just wording. A deposit is charged through Stripe once a bid is accepted, held rather than passed straight to the seller, and released only once pickup or delivery is confirmed. That hold-and-release mechanic is what "escrow-protected" refers to on the platform.
5% by default, and it's charged only once a bid is accepted, not when it's first placed. That distinction matters, you can bid and negotiate without any money moving, the deposit only comes into play once there's an actual agreement to fund.
The deposit link expires after a 24-hour window, and the deal doesn't proceed. That protects a seller from an accepted bid sitting unfunded indefinitely, tying up the listing while a buyer decides whether to actually follow through.
A cancellation fee, 0.5% by default, applies, and the remaining balance of the deposit is refunded within 5-10 business days. It's a real cost to backing out after committing, not a free option to reserve a listing and walk away later.
The seller-side cancellation process is confirmed as a real, working mechanic on the platform. This page focuses on what's independently verifiable in the deposit and payment flow itself, for the full seller-cancellation policy, see the official process walkthrough.
Because the deal isn't actually finished at the point of payment, delivery is. Releasing funds only once pickup or delivery is confirmed protects the buyer from paying for material that never arrives, the same logic behind escrow in any industry where goods and payment don't change hands at the exact same moment.
Stripe, disclosed directly in the product itself, not a new claim made for the first time on this page. It's a widely used, established payment processor, not a custom or unverifiable in-house system handling funds.
The deposit and cancellation fee percentages are built into the transaction structure itself, rather than a separate, additional charge layered on top purely for using escrow. There's no extra "insurance fee" beyond the mechanics described here.
The deposit-and-release mechanic applies once a deal is agreed, whether that agreement came from a fixed-price listing, a won auction bid, or an accepted RFQ response. The path to agreement differs by deal type, what happens to the money afterward doesn't.
Yes, payment status is visible in your account rather than something you have to ask about, showing whether a deposit is pending, paid, or released, consistent with the same transparent status-tracking approach used for seller and buyer verification.
See the full transaction process, deposit to delivery, step by step.
See the Official Process