It seems like my products or services “disappeared” from the marketplace. What can I do?

Products and services do not disappear from the marketplace without any reasons. The only explanation why items can appear to be missing is, if they are marked as inactive by the seller or if an item is sold. Then those items are listed in the respective categories: either in “inactive articles” or in “inactive articles” and “sales” at the same time.

Please be aware that an item listed with a quantity of only 1 unit will automatically “disappear” from the marketplace when it is sold, because it moves into the “sales” and “inactive articles” category. To prevent this and in case you want to offer many units of the same item, please ensure to increase the quantity of the product or service within the item description.

Where do I see the products and services I have sold?

In your marketplace account you find an overview of different item lists: active articles, inactive articles, purchases and sales.

Once you have sold an item it automatically moves from the category of “active articles” to “sales”. In case you offered only 1 unit of the item being sold, the listing on the marketplace will disappear and be shown under the category “inactive articles”.

How does payment work at the Circles Marketplace? How am I notified about received funds?

At this point, the marketplace is only facilitating the match-making between buyers and sellers while the payment is happening only via the wallet. In addition the marketplace does not get feedback from the wallet whether the amount is paid or not, which is why there is no function at the marketplace informing you about the payment status.

 

Nevertheless, that might change once we are working on an integrated payment API, which is scheduled for later this year.

 

For now sellers need to check in the wallet, whether a payment has been received. To make the check-up easier, item numbers which are communicated through the order confirmation emails will automatically be associated with the payments in the wallet.

How do I set prices on the Circles Marketplace? Are there any references?

The marketplace is currently mainly being used by the Berlin community. This local community is part of a Circles laboratory, including a subsidy program. In the subsidy program, businesses can receive a EUR exchange for the items they offer in CRC, currently at a rate of 10 CRC : 1 EUR. While this impacts the pricing of some products and services in Berlin, it does not necessarily reflect the various ways CRC can be used and valued for offers outside the subsidy program and in general across the globe.

 

That being said, you are pretty much free to set prices according to your own will. Just remember: If prices are too high, nobody will buy your item and if they are too small you won’t be able to sustain your potential business in the long run.

Which products and services am I allowed to sell via the Circles Marketplace, which not?

Circles reserves the right not to publish ads or to remove them from Circles Marketplace if there are indications that the advertised product is not for sale or is otherwise being offered in an illegal manner, or if there are indications that the ad is being or has been placed for improper purposes. We can remove ads, if they have sexist, rassist etc. background or connections, they are against science, seem like scam, and have unserious offers.

How can I give feedback on the marketplace or any other Circles services? Where can I report bugs?

If you experience any problems with the marketplace, or you’d like to give feedback or report bugs in our system, please use our feedback form, and choose from the list: technical issues, marketplace design, marketplace features, business inquiry, wallet & transfer or others.

 

Thank you for the heads up!

How is my privacy protected on the marketplace?

At Circles, and the Circles Marketplace respectively, we care about your privacy. That’s why we’d like to inform you that our marketplace uses an open-source analytics tool that protects your data - it’s called Matomo. We do not evaluate your individual data profile nor do we want to advertise certain products or services based on your online behaviour. What we would like to do is foster simple overall statistics e.g. about user counts, location and language. We also want to check on an anonymous base how marketplace users found our website and how they navigate through the offers at the marketplace. All measures utilize pseudonymized user data and are only maintained in order to become able to improve the general marketplace experience.

By using the marketplace you will be asked to opt in this analysis, only then you agree to allow this website to analyse non-individualized data of the actions you take.

Other than that, it doesn’t use third-party services, except when your data is hosted on a server by the hosting provider Hetzner in Germany.

For further information, please take a look at our privacy policy.

Am I protected against fraud?

The purchase contract is set between the buyer and the seller. Circles and the marketplace is only an intermediary and does not sell products or services. To protect buyers against fraud, Circles recommends - especially for items and purchases of 1000 Circles tokens (CRC) or above - to transfer the amount right on the spot during pick-up. In individual cases, it may be also useful to obtain proof of ownership or proof of authenticity (e.g. software) or intactness (e.g. photos of used items).