Buy from community sellers on Arc Bazaar, or open your own shop and sell.
Buy from community sellers on Arc Bazaar, or open your own shop and sell.
What this is
The Arc Bazaar is a marketplace where community members buy and sell products. You can browse and buy safely, and — if you want — set up your own shop to sell your things.
Buying
- Open Arc Bazaar and browse or search. You can narrow by category, condition, price, and which country an item ships from, and sort by price, rating or newest.
- Tap a product to see photos, price, condition, description and reviews. New, used and refurbished items say so on the listing — and second-hand grades are spelled out, so "Good" means the same thing from every seller.
- Every listing shows its price in the seller's own currency, converted for you. You are charged in the seller's currency at checkout.
- Tap Add to cart, then Cart → Checkout.
- Pay securely by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay. Your money is held safely until your order arrives.
- Track everything in My Purchases.
After you buy
- Follow your order's progress (paid → dispatched → delivered).
- Changed your mind? Request a return from the order — sellers set their own returns policy.
- Something actually went wrong? Raise a dispute from the order. That is a different thing
from a return: it freezes the money, gives the seller three days to answer, lets you both show
photographs, and ends with the Arc Council if you cannot settle it. Read
Buyer protection — it is short, and it says exactly who decides what.
- Leave a review to help other buyers (and earn Arc Credits).
Shops and storefronts
Every shop has a page of its own — its name, banner, story, where it ships from, how long it takes to post something, its reviews and everything it has for sale. You do not need an Arc account to open one, so a seller can share their shop with anybody.
A shop shows badges that mean something specific:
- Handmade — the seller makes what they sell.
- Takes custom orders — you can ask for something made to order.
- Hub shop — the shop belongs to a Hub, not to one person (see below).
- Featured shop — Arc is featuring it in the Bazaar.
Hub shops
A Hub can have a shop of its own in Arc Bazaar — a gurdwara selling books, a sports club selling kit, a community centre selling raffle tickets.
- The shop belongs to the Hub, not to any one member. Listings read "Sold by [Hub name]".
- Any of the Hub's existing admins or moderators can add and edit its items. There is no new role to hand out.
- Anyone running the Hub opens it from the Hub's manage page: Hubs you run → the Hub → This Hub's shop.
- When you create a listing, Sell as lets you choose your own shop or the Hub's.
- The Hub's shop appears on the Hub's page and in the Bazaar, like any other shop.
Payment for a Hub sale currently settles to the admin who listed the item — Hubs cannot hold money on Arc yet. Arc says so on the screen when you open a Hub shop.
Selling
Opening a shop requires a Business or Organisation account. Anyone can buy, but to sell you first upgrade your account in Settings. This keeps the marketplace trusted.
- Upgrade to a Business or Organisation account in Settings (if you have not already).
- In the sidebar under Create & Earn, tap Sell on Arc and complete the quick setup.
- Add products with photos, a price, and a description.
- Manage everything from My Shop — orders, listings, and earnings.
The same applies to hosting events, posting jobs, offering services, and taking bookings: these need a Business or Organisation account. Becoming a Creator needs a Creator account. Fundraising is open to everyone.
Arc holds buyers' payments in escrow and releases them to you (minus a small platform fee) after delivery. Withdraw from Earnings.
Shop tiers
Arc Bazaar has four tiers. Pick the one that fits how much you sell:
- Free (automatic): 10 product listings, 2 images per product, 8% processing fee per sale, manual upload only.
- Marketplace Standard (£14.99/month, or £11.53 per 28 days annual): 50 listings, 3 images per product, 5% fee, CSV bulk upload, priority support.
- Marketplace Pro (£34.99/month, or £26.92 per 28 days annual): 100 listings, 8 images per product, 3% fee, CSV bulk upload, Shopify and WooCommerce sync, featured placement, advanced analytics.
- Enterprise (contact enterprise@thearcsocial.com): unlimited listings, 15 images per product, 1.5% fee. Activated by Arc on request.
Every product image is automatically converted to WebP and checked against your tier's size limit. Founder accounts have Pro-equivalent access.
Promo codes
If you have a promo code, enter it in the Have a promo code? box on the Marketplace Standard card on the Subscriptions page and tap Apply. Valid codes show a confirmation (for example "3 months free applied") and the discount is applied at checkout. Promo codes apply to Marketplace Standard.
Bulk import with CSV
On Standard and above you can add many products at once from a spreadsheet:
- Go to My Shop → Integrations → CSV Import.
- Download the template and fill in one product per row. Title, price and category are required.
- Upload your file. Arc shows a preview and flags any rows with problems.
- Fix any rows, then Import valid products only.
Connecting Shopify and WooCommerce
On Marketplace Pro (and Enterprise) you can sync an existing store:
- Shopify: In My Shop → Integrations → Shopify, enter your store URL and Admin API access token. Products, images and inventory sync automatically every hour, and you can Sync now any time.
- WooCommerce: In My Shop → Integrations → WooCommerce, enter your site URL and REST API consumer key and secret.
When an item sells on Arc, Arc reduces the stock on your connected store automatically. If a sync cannot complete, Arc retries and lets you know if you need to update stock manually. Store images are re-hosted on Arc so your listings keep working even if the original store changes.
Common questions
Is it safe to buy? Your payment is held by Arc until the order is settled, and raising a dispute freezes it there — nobody is paid while you are still arguing. See Buyer protection.
What does it cost to sell? Listing is free; Arc takes a small fee on each sale.
Can I sell to other countries? Yes — you set which countries you ship to.
How do I get paid? Connect your bank, and withdraw your earnings from the Earnings page.
Troubleshooting
- My payment failed — no money is taken unless it completes; try again.
- My order hasn't arrived — check the tracking on the order, then message the seller. If it still has not come, raise a dispute from the order: "it never arrived" needs no photograph, because you cannot photograph an absence.
- I can't add a product — make sure you've finished seller setup first.
- A return isn't showing — returns appear on the specific order once requested.
Related help
Last updated: 26 July 2026