Buying & Selling Process

The principle behind SwarmBuy.com is to bring more competitive pricing to buyers by enabling sellers to offer lower prices due to larger order sizes. This has the potential to be a win-win situation. Buyers get better deals than usual and sellers can increase revenue by selling larger volume than might be easily possible using conventional means. To provide sellers with some degree of security that they can fulfill an order there are rules of engagement. This process is outlined here and serves as the basis for initiating and completing sales via SwarmBuy.com.

Following are the states that offers and orders can be in at any given time. These are listed since they are referenced often while explaining the process.

Offers can have any of the following states:

• Cancelled - cancelled by seller
• Unpublished- seller can still edit
• Active - visible and open for user orders
• Locked - awaiting seller confirmation
• Confirmed - awaiting fulfillment
• Completed - seller has fulfilled the offer's orders

Orders can have the following states:

• Cancelled - buyer has cancelled the order
• Rejected - seller has rejected the order
• Pending - awaiting seller action (locking)
• Locked - awaiting buyer confirmation
• Confirmed - awaiting seller fulfillment
• Completed - seller has shipped the order
• Received - buyer has received their order

The Transaction Process

1. User joins a swarm -- this augments the swarm size and average request value. The user is now able to browse any available offers that match their swarm membership profile. User must join first so that the swarm size is representative of interest.
2. Seller publishes an offer for a swarm item. This is reflected in the swarm details and average offer value.
3. User likes a seller's offer and places an order. At this stage there is no obligation.
4. At any time a seller may cancel an offer. If the offer has progressed to confirmed or beyond then buyer will have an opportunity to rate the seller.
5. At any time a seller may reject an order. If the offer has progressed to confirmed or beyond then buyer will have an opportunity to rate the seller.
6. At any time a buyer may cancel an order. If the order has progressed to confirmed or beyond then seller will have the opportunity to rate the buyer.
7. At any time a seller may lock an active order. Once an order is locked, the order owners are notified that the offer has been locked and that they must confirm their order to progress to a purchase. Order owners may cancel at this point without obligation. Once an order owner confirms their order, they are obligated to make the purchase even if the offer is not yet confirmed (see obligation details below). Seller has the opportunity at any time while locked to either unlock the offer (revert to active), cancel the offer, or reject any orders.
8. If the seller unlocks the offer then all confirmed orders will revert to pending without any penalty to either the buyer or the seller. Similarly, if the seller rejects a confirmed order before the offer has been confirmed then there is no penalty to either the order's owner or the seller.
9. At anytime when an offer is locked the seller may confirm the order. This indicates that the seller has verified that they are able to fulfill the order as specified by the offer. When an offer is confirmed, any orders that have not yet been confirmed will be automatically rejected. All that will remain are buyer confirmed orders and the seller confirmed offer. At this stage the confirmed order owners and the seller are obligated to proceed with final sale.
10. Once an offer has been confirmed the buyer should pay the seller and the seller should ship the order according to the details described in the offer. Additionally, the seller will have the opportunity to rate each buyer. Similarly, each buyer will have the opportunity to rate the seller. Ratings will be used to create a reputation both for sellers and for buyers. Sellers will be able to use buyer ratings to filter buyers with which they are willing to do business. Similarly, buyers will be able to use seller ratings to filter sellers with which they are willing to do business. Such filtering will affect the visibility of swarm offers and the ability to create an order.
11. Once a seller locks an offer they will have 5 days to confirm the offer. If the 5 days pass without confirmation, then the offer will be reverted to unlocked and confirmed orders will revert to pending.
12. That's it that's all :)

Obligation Details

The SwarmBuy system is intended to put large numbers of buyers in contact with sellers who are capable and willing to meet the demand. Given any swarm with sufficient interested buyers, sellers should be able to make extremely competitive offers.

The ability to fulfill large orders is the key to great offers and is why buyers are obligated to complete the purchase once they have confirmed their order. Upon confirmation a buyer has said, "YES! I still want this order to go through.". Given this confirmation the seller can be fairly sure that the number of confirmed orders is indeed the number of orders that will be fulfilled and so their expected profit margin will remain intact. Don't forget, sellers need to eat too :)