Shopper-first default experience at market.wiggleverse.org; seller experience at its own URL #24

New Issue

2026-06-11T14:18:50Z

ben.stull commented

2026-06-11 14:18:50 +00:00

Summary

Make the shopper the default audience of Wiggleverse Market: arriving at
market.wiggleverse.org presents the customer experience and signs you up as a
customer, while the seller experience lives at its own address — reached, like
Etsy's, through a "become a seller" choice in a signed-in customer's profile
menu.

Problem / pain

Wiggleverse Market is a marketplace, and a marketplace's dominant audience by
far is people who come to browse and buy. Yet the front door today speaks only
to sellers: the hero pitch is "Sell online, honestly", the primary action is
"Create your storefront", and the sole sign-in framing is "Already selling with
us?". A shopper who lands on the main address finds no path meant for them at
all — every future shopper pays a confusion cost at the exact moment the
platform is making its first impression, and the platform reads as a
storefront-builder rather than a place to shop.

Mixing both audiences through one door also hurts the seller side: seller
sign-up has to compete for the same surface, and neither experience can be
shaped confidently for its audience. The longer the single-door shape persists,
the more screens, flows, and emails accrete onto it — making the eventual
separation a costlier rework with each slice shipped, and risking a public
launch that greets buyers with a builder pitch.

Who feels it

persona	role	what they need
Shopper	visits the marketplace to browse and buy	a front door that is obviously for them, with sign-up that treats them as a customer by default
Prospective seller	a customer who decides to start selling	a clear, discoverable path from their existing account into selling — without re-registering
Merchant	already sells on the platform	a dedicated seller home at its own address, not a mode squeezed into the shopping experience

Desired outcome / value

The two audiences each get an experience built for them: the main address is
unambiguously a place to shop, so shopper trust and first impressions match
what a marketplace should be — and selling becomes a deliberate step up from a
customer account at its own address, giving the seller experience room to grow
without competing for the shopper's front door.

Acceptance — "done right"

A visitor arriving at market.wiggleverse.org sees a shopping-oriented
experience; signing up there creates a customer account — no seller pitch as
the default framing.
A signed-in customer finds a "become a seller" (or equivalent) option in
their profile/account menu; choosing it is the entry into selling and does
not require a second registration.
The seller experience — onboarding and storefront management — lives at its
own customer-visible address, distinct from the shopping address.
An existing merchant can still reach everything they can do today; nothing a
seller could do is lost in the split.
The two experiences don't leak into each other: shoppers never land in
seller screens uninvited, and the seller surface doesn't masquerade as the
shopping one.

Scope / non-goals

In scope:

The default experience at market.wiggleverse.org: shopping-oriented
landing and customer-by-default sign-up.
The "become a seller" entry point in the signed-in customer's profile/account
menu.
A distinct customer-visible address for the seller experience (onboarding +
storefront management), and moving the existing seller flows under it.

Non-goals:

The shopping experience itself (browse, search, cart, checkout) — this
feature sets the door and the split, not what's behind the shopper door.
Any change to what sellers can do — capability parity, not new seller
features.
Seller vetting/approval policy — "become a seller" is an entry point; whether
it gates is its own question.

Assumptions · constraints · dependencies

Depends on #23 (Wiggleverse Market rebrand) — the addresses this feature
splits across hang off the market.wiggleverse.org decision.
Reshapes the SD-0001 §5.1–5.2 landing and sign-in flows shipped in
SLICE-1–3; their Solution Design framing ("both doors open the same sign-in
flow") is superseded by shopper-as-default.
Assumes one account spans both roles: a seller is a customer who stepped up,
not a separate registration — the customer/seller distinction the platform
doesn't yet draw is design-time territory.
Constraint: existing merchants (PPE rehearsal accounts) must not be stranded
by the move.

Source / signal

Self-originated — operator ask in capture session ecomm-0028 (2026-06-11):
"because [market.wiggleverse.org] is a marketplace, the default experience will
be to sign up as a customer, not a seller … this experience [selling] to live
on a different URL, similar to Etsy's experience where you log in and then have
the option in your profile menu to become a seller."

Priority (WSJF)

Value 6 · Time-criticality 4 (must precede public launch; doesn't gate the
prod stand-up itself) · Opportunity 2 ÷ Size 4 ≈ 3 → priority/P2.

Decomposition

Leaf feature — no child issues. All implementation decisions are deferred to
the Solution Design (operator-directed).

Solution notes (non-binding — all decisions deferred to the Solution Design)

Reference experience: Etsy — etsy.com is the shopper surface;
selling is entered from the signed-in account menu and lives at its own
address (sell.etsy.com).
Candidate seller-address shapes to weigh in the design:
sell.market.wiggleverse.org · market.wiggleverse.org/sell ·
a sibling such as sellers.wiggleverse.org.
The existing Landing / sign-in / CreateStorefront screens are the material
being redistributed; nothing else is presumed.

## Summary Make the shopper the default audience of Wiggleverse Market: arriving at `market.wiggleverse.org` presents the customer experience and signs you up as a customer, while the seller experience lives at its own address — reached, like Etsy's, through a "become a seller" choice in a signed-in customer's profile menu. ## Problem / pain Wiggleverse Market is a marketplace, and a marketplace's dominant audience by far is people who come to browse and buy. Yet the front door today speaks only to sellers: the hero pitch is "Sell online, honestly", the primary action is "Create your storefront", and the sole sign-in framing is "Already selling with us?". A shopper who lands on the main address finds no path meant for them at all — every future shopper pays a confusion cost at the exact moment the platform is making its first impression, and the platform reads as a storefront-builder rather than a place to shop. Mixing both audiences through one door also hurts the seller side: seller sign-up has to compete for the same surface, and neither experience can be shaped confidently for its audience. The longer the single-door shape persists, the more screens, flows, and emails accrete onto it — making the eventual separation a costlier rework with each slice shipped, and risking a public launch that greets buyers with a builder pitch. ## Who feels it | persona | role | what they need | | --- | --- | --- | | Shopper | visits the marketplace to browse and buy | a front door that is obviously for them, with sign-up that treats them as a customer by default | | Prospective seller | a customer who decides to start selling | a clear, discoverable path from their existing account into selling — without re-registering | | Merchant | already sells on the platform | a dedicated seller home at its own address, not a mode squeezed into the shopping experience | ## Desired outcome / value The two audiences each get an experience built for them: the main address is unambiguously a place to shop, so shopper trust and first impressions match what a marketplace should be — and selling becomes a deliberate step up from a customer account at its own address, giving the seller experience room to grow without competing for the shopper's front door. ## Acceptance — "done right" - A visitor arriving at `market.wiggleverse.org` sees a shopping-oriented experience; signing up there creates a customer account — no seller pitch as the default framing. - A signed-in customer finds a "become a seller" (or equivalent) option in their profile/account menu; choosing it is the entry into selling and does not require a second registration. - The seller experience — onboarding and storefront management — lives at its own customer-visible address, distinct from the shopping address. - An existing merchant can still reach everything they can do today; nothing a seller could do is lost in the split. - The two experiences don't leak into each other: shoppers never land in seller screens uninvited, and the seller surface doesn't masquerade as the shopping one. ## Scope / non-goals **In scope:** - The default experience at `market.wiggleverse.org`: shopping-oriented landing and customer-by-default sign-up. - The "become a seller" entry point in the signed-in customer's profile/account menu. - A distinct customer-visible address for the seller experience (onboarding + storefront management), and moving the existing seller flows under it. **Non-goals:** - The shopping experience itself (browse, search, cart, checkout) — this feature sets the door and the split, not what's behind the shopper door. - Any change to what sellers can do — capability parity, not new seller features. - Seller vetting/approval policy — "become a seller" is an entry point; whether it gates is its own question. ## Assumptions · constraints · dependencies - Depends on **#23** (Wiggleverse Market rebrand) — the addresses this feature splits across hang off the `market.wiggleverse.org` decision. - Reshapes the SD-0001 §5.1–5.2 landing and sign-in flows shipped in SLICE-1–3; their Solution Design framing ("both doors open the same sign-in flow") is superseded by shopper-as-default. - Assumes one account spans both roles: a seller is a customer who stepped up, not a separate registration — the customer/seller distinction the platform doesn't yet draw is design-time territory. - Constraint: existing merchants (PPE rehearsal accounts) must not be stranded by the move. ## Source / signal Self-originated — operator ask in capture session `ecomm-0028` (2026-06-11): "because [market.wiggleverse.org] is a marketplace, the default experience will be to sign up as a customer, not a seller … this experience [selling] to live on a different URL, similar to Etsy's experience where you log in and then have the option in your profile menu to become a seller." ## Priority (WSJF) Value 6 · Time-criticality 4 (must precede public launch; doesn't gate the prod stand-up itself) · Opportunity 2 ÷ Size 4 ≈ **3** → `priority/P2`. ## Decomposition Leaf feature — no child issues. All implementation decisions are deferred to the Solution Design (operator-directed). ## Solution notes (non-binding — all decisions deferred to the Solution Design) - Reference experience: **Etsy** — `etsy.com` is the shopper surface; selling is entered from the signed-in account menu and lives at its own address (`sell.etsy.com`). - Candidate seller-address shapes to weigh in the design: `sell.market.wiggleverse.org` · `market.wiggleverse.org/sell` · a sibling such as `sellers.wiggleverse.org`. - The existing Landing / sign-in / CreateStorefront screens are the material being redistributed; nothing else is presumed.

ben.stull added the type/feature priority/P2 labels 2026-06-11 14:18:50 +00:00

ben.stull commented

2026-06-12 16:16:25 +00:00

Closing as part of the pivot from a generic multi-tenant Shopify-alternative storefront to the commitment-commerce + cross-maker verified referral network direction (see ecomm-content/rfcs/network_strategy.md; session 0036).

Shopper/seller URL split is storefront/marketplace UX — superseded: the storefront is Medusa, the network is a separate service.

Nothing is lost — code stays in git history and the issue can be reopened if it resurfaces under the network architecture.

Closing as part of the pivot from a generic multi-tenant Shopify-alternative storefront to the commitment-commerce + cross-maker verified referral **network** direction (see `ecomm-content/rfcs/network_strategy.md`; session 0036). Shopper/seller URL split is storefront/marketplace UX — superseded: the storefront is Medusa, the network is a separate service. Nothing is lost — code stays in git history and the issue can be reopened if it resurfaces under the network architecture.

ben.stull closed this issue

2026-06-12 16:16:25 +00:00

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Reference: wiggleverse/wiggleverse-ecomm#24