Marketplace owners have the power to customize who can join their marketplace, how, and what visitors who haven't joined can see. Refer to Who's In My Marketplace?: Marketplace Visibility and Buyer Policies for an in-depth explanation of these settings. In this guide, we'll go over how to manually invite buyers to your marketplace.
Clickpath: Buyers
All buyers will be asked to verify their email address once they create a Builtfirst account. After verification and (optional) approval from your team, they'll have full access to deals in your marketplace.
How to: Inviting / Pre-Approving / Whitelisting
Inviting or whitelisting someone pre-approves them to join your marketplace. Once that person verifies their email address, they'll automatically gain full access to view and redeem offers.
Click the "Add Buyers" button to get started.
Complete the 4 steps below to pre-approve:
1) Search for the buyer
You can approve buyers based on a specific email address (ex. abc@123.com) or just a domain (ex. 123.com). Search for either in this step and we'll let you know whether they're already approved. If they're not, proceed on to the next step.
2) Add the buyer's details (optional)
Whether you're adding a single person or a domain, they need to be associated with a name. Add the buyer's (personal or organization) name in this step.
You also have the option of adding more like their logo, social media, and incorporation details.
Some sellers opt to hide their offers based on buyers' company information, so pay close attention when filling out country of incorporation, areas of operation, founding year, and funding amount. If skipped or entered incorrectly, it could mean fewer discounts for your founders.
3) Trigger or bypass the invitation
Choose whether you want to send the buyer an invitation email to let them know they've been pre-approved. Skipping this won't affect the buyer's ability to log in and you can always trigger an invitation later if you change your mind.
You can view/edit the invitation email contents on the Communications page.
4) Confirm your selections
Double-check your entries here. If everything looks good, proceed with pre-approving your buyer.
Buyer Statuses
Each buyer will have 1 of 3 possible statuses depending on where they are in their marketplace journey.
Active - users's email address has been verified (invite accepted, user has logged in at least once)
Pre-approved - user has been pre-approved, but hasn't verified their email address yet
Pending approval - user has requested access to your marketplace, but you've not yet approved them as a buyer
To customize whether users need your approval to view or join the marketplace, visit your Marketplace Access Settings.
Resending Invitations
If a buyer is in "pre-approved" status, they can receive the marketplace invitation email. You can trigger this whether you selected to send an invite during original pre-approval or not.
Find your pre-approved buyer on either tab of the Buyers page to re-invite them using the action menu:
Rescinding Invitations and Access
Buyers in "pre-approved" status haven't logged in yet, so deleting them from the Buyers page will rescind their invitation immediately.
If you have a buyer that's already active, deleting them will instantly revoke their marketplace access.
In both cases, you can delete buyers by using the action menu:
Troubleshooting
Q: "Domain/URL has already been taken" / "Domain/ URL is already in use" error appears when I try to invite my coworkers.
A: Users with the same email domain as you (i.e. people at your company) cannot be added as buyers. Anyone sharing your company's email domain should instead be added as a team member.
Q: I want my coworkers to be able to see the marketplace as a buyer. What can I do since I can't invite them as one?
A: All team members can preview the marketplace. If you'd still prefer to add a member of your organization as buyer, invite them using a non-work email address.
Q: I used to send my buyers the sharable link for instant access to my marketplace. Where did it go?
A: Sharable links have been phased out. Now, you can just set your Marketplace Policy to "open" and send startups the url to your marketplace. They'll still gain access without needing any additional approvals!
Q: I used to bulk upload my buyers using a spreadsheet. Is that still an option?
A: Bulk uploads have been temporarily disabled while we work on quality updates. Check back for an improved bulk upload feature soon!