Seller Fair Go Principles
Organic marketplace rank cannot be bought. Commercial exceptions must be visible in the seller's applicable records.
We built OKNowShop around inspectable marketplace rules rather than paid organic ranking. Compare the current rate card and seller terms with your alternatives before deciding whether the commercial model fits.
These are our current principles. They describe the product and operating posture we are building around, with code-backed controls where the feature is live and policy controls where the feature depends on marketplace operations.
1. No Paid Advertising Between Sellers
There are currently no sponsored products, promoted listings, pay-per-click campaigns, or bidding wars on OKNowShop. Organic search is not an ad auction. Locality signals are based on the seller/location record and shopper proximity—not competitive bidding. Seller-provided location is not independently verified unless a distinct reviewed state is shown.
What shapes organic search results:
- Match — does the product match the buyer's search query?
- Merchant quality — stock availability, seller trust (fulfilment, disputes, service), and reviews
- Personal fit — how well the listing fits this shopper (preferences, session context, recent interest, typical spend band)
- Locality — nearby sellers can surface more strongly when location is known
Different buyers can see a different order for the same query. That is intentional hyper-personalisation, not paid placement.
What does not buy rank:
- Ad spend or sponsored slots (none are currently offered)
- Your account entitlements — enabled tools do not change organic search score; supplier access remains relationship- and capability-gated
- Paying the platform for higher placement
A one-person candle maker in Fremantle is scored with the same ranking model as a national electronics distributor. Plan size does not multiply search score.
2. Published Marketplace Fees
Marketplace fees are configurable and may include a platform rate, loyalty funding component, per-seller order fee, and provider processing. The public rate card shows the active standard category schedule; Financial Records → Fees & Pricing shows the schedule and any active override for the signed-in seller.
Do not use a percentage or worked example copied from this handbook. Before pricing a product, inspect the current rate card, your account record, payment processing, shipping, refunds, chargebacks, and tax treatment. The accepted order fee records are authoritative for what was actually charged.
Paid subscription checkout is currently disabled. Displayed plan entitlements do not establish a paid subscription charge.
3. Transparent Commission Rates
The standard category rate card is published for sellers. The fee engine can also apply an active seller-specific promotional, negotiated, or GMV-capped override before it resolves the category or default rate.
Transparency therefore means that the applicable standard schedule and any account override are visible and that the accepted order records the fee used. It does not mean every seller or category necessarily has an identical rate. If the public card, Fees & Pricing, agreement, and order record disagree, stop and ask seller support to resolve the discrepancy before relying on an estimate.
4. Clear 1P/3P Boundaries
OKNowShop is a marketplace-first platform: independent sellers are the core of the assortment. Launch has no house merchandise range. 1P vendor-dropship is not a liquidity tool.
A first-party SKU, if it ever exists, is a separately approved contingency: named list, disclosed to buyers, same published ranking rules, 3P can sell the same offer, and no silent self-prefer. We do not use your sales or pricing data to build copycat products or undercut your best sellers.
Your data is yours. This is the same commitment as “we are not a private-label factory competing with you by cloning your catalogue.”
5. Your Brand Matters
On Amazon, you're a line item. On OKNowShop, you're a business.
- Your seller identity — visible in seller/product context where that surface is enabled
- Your service record — seller fulfilment, dispute, and trust inputs contribute to marketplace decisions
- Your customer operations — order-linked messaging provides a supported resolution path where enabled
- Product ratings — a star and count appear only for eligible verified-purchase customer ratings; editorial/mixed scores, review text, and seller replies are not public
When a customer buys from you, they know they're buying from you. Your brand identity is part of the shopping experience, not hidden behind a generic checkout page.
6. Equal Access to Tools
Every seller is governed by the published plan and account entitlements shown in Partner Portal—not by ad spend or an unpublished volume deal.
Tools can be account- or entitlement-gated, but enabled tools do not buy organic search rank. Supplier trading access is governed by verification, capability, connection, and commercial terms rather than a subscription label alone. Exact entitlements live in Partner Portal when you are signed in; this handbook does not re-publish a packaging matrix.
Plan packaging does not make a deferred or unproven workflow operational. Check Feature Availability before planning around an advanced tool.
7. New Products Are Eligible for Organic Discovery
A new approved, in-stock product can match typed search without buying placement or waiting to enter a paid tier. Search match still depends on the query, listing content, catalogue state, and shopper context; inclusion is not guaranteed.
Rating thresholds are one merchant-quality signal, not the entry ticket to search. A product with no ratings is not automatically assigned zero visibility, but it also receives no promise of a particular position, impression count, or first sale.
8. Local Retailers Get Local Customers
If you have a physical store, your products get a locality affinity boost to customers near you.
This isn't advertising — it's proximity. When a customer in Newtown searches for a product you stock in your Newtown shop, your listing gets a locality signal. This means:
- Customers can find nearby seller options after the product matches the query
- Brick-and-mortar retailers compete on their natural advantage: being nearby
- Local shopping stays local
Locality visibility: Seller location and physical-retail status can contribute to proximity after query match. Those fields are seller-provided unless a distinct reviewed verification state is shown. Pickup/BOPIS is separate and is not currently available in Partner Portal.
A retailer with a physical shop employs local people, pays local rent, and contributes to their community. A dropshipper operating from overseas doesn't. Locality visibility recognises that difference. It's not about outbidding other sellers — it's proof of presence.
This is how we help local retail compete with foreign e-commerce — not by blocking anyone, but by making sure that when a customer is near your store, they know you exist.
9. Documented Rules and Exceptions
- Same published payout rules — eligibility, review, reserve/adjustment, and transfer terms come from the current seller agreement and account records; a subscription plan does not buy an undocumented preferential path.
- Recorded dispute process — use the order-linked escalation path and retain its evidence and outcome.
- Published content standards — listing claims and moderation are assessed against the applicable content policy and recorded curation reason.
10. Search Ranking Is Transparent
Unlike Amazon's A9/A10 algorithm (a black box that even Amazon's own seller support can't explain), we publish the kinds of signals organic search uses and what we refuse to use.
Two stages:
- Text match — products must match the query before they can be reordered
- Personalised rerank — matched results are reordered using merchant quality, shopper context, and locality (boost-only multipliers)
Published signal groups (detail and approximate boosts live in Search Visibility):
| Group | Examples | Who influences it |
|---|---|---|
| Match | Title, description, category, attributes vs query | You (listing quality) |
| Merchant quality | In stock, seller trust, review count thresholds | You + customers |
| Personal fit | Brand/category affinity, session interest, price-range affinity, recent interactions | Buyer behaviour |
| Locality | Proximity within a local radius | Your location + buyer location |
Explicitly not ranking levers:
- Paid placement / sponsored products
- Subscription plan or GMV tier (plan does not buy organic rank)
- Seller fee or commercial terms
We do not claim a closed five-factor list with no personalisation. Shoppers get hyper-personalised results; sellers get a clear map of controllable levers (stock, trust, content, fulfilment, location) and an honest statement that buyer context also moves order. If visibility is weak, start with match quality and trust — see Search Visibility.
The Fair Go Promise
These principles are intended to be architectural: reflected in the platform, the rate card, and the operating model rather than treated as slogans.
We keep marketplace fees published because the seller should be able to assess the commercial model before committing. When a seller brings an audience through a tracked link, the platform still has to earn repeat business through accurate products, reliable fulfilment, support, and the enabled loyalty experience—it is not assumed.
That's the fair go.