Guide · Updated 6 August 2026

How to set up a fundraising marketplace, step by step.

Marketplace is for the merchandise table, the raffle prize, the extra bottle of wine — fixed-price items donors buy on the spot, no bidding. It’s the smallest setup on the platform; here’s the whole thing.

1. Open Marketplace

From a campaign, go to Marketplace in the left nav. It opens on Items, empty until you add your first one — Purchases is the second tab, where you can cancel an order before it’s invoiced.

2. Turn Marketplace on

Marketplace is off by default — flip the toggle before donors can see it on your public event page. Turning it off later hides it again without deleting anything you’ve listed.

3. Add a buy-now item

Press "+ Add Item" and fill in a name, price and quantity — the three required fields. A per-donor limit is optional if you want to cap how many of one item a single donor can buy; inventory is enforced atomically, so it can’t be oversold even if several donors buy the last one at the same moment.

The add-marketplace-item form with name, price and quantity fields

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Questions, answered.

Do donors need to register before buying a marketplace item?

Yes — marketplace purchases use the paddle number issued at registration as the buyer’s identity, so a donor needs to be registered first (walk-in registration takes seconds from the Registrations tab).

What happens when an item sells out?

It flips to sold-out automatically the instant the last unit is claimed — no manual step, and no risk of overselling under concurrent buyers.

Can I cancel a purchase after it’s made?

Yes, from the Purchases tab, as long as it hasn’t been invoiced yet — cancelling restores the inventory and reopens the item if it had sold out.

Does a marketplace purchase settle payment immediately?

No — like auction wins, a confirmed marketplace purchase is added to the donor’s consolidated checkout tab and settles when that tab is invoiced and paid.

Explore more

How to set up donor registration How to set up consolidated checkout Fundraising auction software

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