Vendor onboarding

In the previous guide, we looked at customizing Swell to lay the foundations for creating a marketplace. Here we will be looking at onboarding for vendors, platform fees, and lay the foundation for creating vendor payouts.

In order to set up payouts to vendors, you will need to have both a Stripe account and a Netlify account. Aside from creating the accounts, please follow the steps below to ensure you have the proper configurations:

After creating your repos and site from git, you will also need to install Netlify on your local machine.

npm install netlify-cli -g

netlify link // Choose current repo

// Create the following structure in your repo. 
-- .netlify
  -- functions
    -- stripe-create-acc
      -- stripe-create-acc.js
    -- stripe-link-acc
      -- stripe-link-acc.js

netlify dev

The first step is to get your vendors onboarded with Stripe so that they can receive payouts.

Install the stripe library:

npm install stripe --save

Use the following function to create an express account for each vendor. Stripe provides the onboarding flow for these accounts. You can also modify the below formula to create custom or standard accounts.

In stripe-create-acc.js:

const stripe = require('stripe')('STRIPE_TEST_KEY'); // TODO: Change to env

exports.handler = async function (event, context) {
  const { identity, user } = context.clientContext
  
  if (event.httpMethod !== "POST") {
    return { statusCode: 405, body: "Method Not Allowed" };
  }

  const account = await stripe.accounts.create({
    type: 'express',
  });

  const data = await account;
  return {
    statusCode: 200,
    body: JSON.stringify({data})
  }
}

POST 'localhost:8888/.netlify/functions/stripe-create-acc'

You'll need the id since you have to pass this in the body of the next API call:

{"data":{"id":"acct_1Iu1bu2SHSa0FZJ3","object":"account",...}}

Create the stripe-link-acc.js function. This establishes an onboarding URL that your vendors need to complete in order to enter their verification and bank info:

const stripe = require('stripe')('STRIPE_TEST_KEY'); //TODO: Change to env

exports.handler = async function (event, context) {
  
  if (event.httpMethod !== "POST") {
    return { statusCode: 405, body: "Method Not Allowed" };
  }

  const body = JSON.parse(event.body);

  const accountLinks = await stripe.accountLinks.create({
    account: body.accountId,
    refresh_url: 'https://example.com/reauth', // Change to actual URL
    return_url: 'https://example.com/return', // Change to actual URL
    type: 'account_onboarding',
  });

  const data = await accountLinks;
  return {
    statusCode: 200,
    body: JSON.stringify({data})
  }
}

Test this locally like the function above with the accountId returned with the previous call:

POST 'localhost:8888/.netlify/functions/stripe-link-acc', {
  "accountId": "acct_1Iu1bu2SHSa0FZJ3"
}

This returns the following url:

{"data":{"object":"account_link","created":1621715261,"expires_at":1621715561,"url":"https://connect.stripe.com/express/onboarding/eSLptzRHZTDc" ... }}

Return the url to the vendor so they can start their onboarding through Stripe Connect.

A vendor will have to complete their onboarding for their account to be fully functional. Vendors redirected to your return_url may have completed the onboarding process. For these instances, use the Stripe /v1/accounts endpoint to retrieve the user’s account and check for charges_enabled.

If the vendor does not complete their onboarding, you'll need to provide UI prompts to allow them to continue onboarding later. The user can complete their account activation through a new account link (generated by the API call above). You can check the state of the details_submitted parameter on their Stripe Connect account to see if they have completed the onboarding process.

Assuming that a vendor has completed their onboarding, you can update Swell's account model to include their Stripe id to manage payouts and transfers:

POST '/:models/accounts/fields', {
  "stripe_connect_id": {
    "type": "string",
    "label": "Stripe Connect ID"
  }
}

Let's now create a relation between the vendor and their Stripe connect account ID in Swell:

PUT '/accounts/{id}', {
  "stripe_connect_id": "acct_1Iu1PE2R8FdXytPe",
}

Now that we have vendors associated to the Stripe account, we need to establish the transaction logic in Swell to charge platform fees to vendors:

POST ':/models/orders/fields/items/fields',
{
  "platform_fee": {
    "type": "float",
    "default": 0.2
  }

We can accomplish this by creating a platform_item_field to capture a portion of each item's total price towards the platform:

POST '/:models/orders/fields/items/fields', 
{
  "platform_item_fee": {
    "type": "float",
    "formula": "platform_fee * price_total"
  }
}

This example calculates 20% of each item's total price as the platform fee. This will deduct the fee from vendor payouts and allocate it as the platform's revenue.

With vendors successfully onboarded, the last step will be setting up the payout logic to ensure vendors can receive payment for their goods purchased on the marketplace.