About TradeMast


The "whys" and "hows" of the concept...

The founders were tired of the way things have always been done. We read your reports about unfair sales adjudications on other platforms. We read, and understand, that you're 'tired of the idea that your Marketplace could hold, or "appropriate", funds from your business. We didn't like fake ratings. We wanted a verified system where both parties are held accountable. And, finally, we wanted it to be more fair, and have less fees whrever possible. So, we decided to change the model...


We are an advertisement service only

TradeMast does not handle, transport, or house any goods on behalf of Members. We don't warehouse, ship, receive or, in any way, touch products. Likewise, we do have futures plans to offer advertisement options for any number of services. The ultimate goal being: ANY service we may choose to, or can, accommodate. We act as an advertisement hub (like any news paper or radio or tv ad) and collect a fee based upon the 'type' of advertisement and what technology services may be required to provide for that particular work-flow. We are charging for software useage, and API reimbursement only. We also provide you with a detailed transaction history. Members enjoy that their sales and/or purchases are recorded for their record keeping.


Fees

TradeMast endeavors to provide the lowest cost system available (all things considered) while maintaining enough revenue to support continuing, and growing, operations. At the same time, we want to provide a way to 'give back' to our 'stakeholder' Members who help make TradeMast possible. In today's world, changes in government policy, economic uncertainties, and fraud create conditions where marketplaces must adapt to protect themselves and their Members. Usually, this self-protection, comes in the form of a wide variety of fees, inconvenient holds, 'unfair dispute resolutions' and various other encumbrances to your Selling activities.

TradeMast provides a system that allows you, the seller, to control how you do business (within our terms of use), and how you handle your sales, returns, sales taxes, income taxes and order fulfillment. Our fees are among the lowest in the online marketplace industry.

Bottom line: You sign up for a Free merchant account (no monthly fee), pay 6% or less for your sales on TradeMast in ANY category, and pay a maximum 2.8% + $0.28 per credit card transaction. That's it! Simple and Easy.

Take a look:


Amazon eBay Etsy TradeMast
Financial Control*1 No No No Yes
Independence*1 No No No Yes
Holds on Funds*1 Yes Yes Yes No
Independent Merchant Accounts*2 No Yes No Yes
Automatic Merchant Integration*2 No N/A N/A Yes
StoreFront Fee*6 $39.99 $4.95 - $2995.95 $0.00 $0.00
Sales Fee*7 6.0% - 45.0% Up to 15% 6.5% 6.0% or less
Listing Fee*8 $0.001 $0.05 - $0.30 $0.20 $0.00
Fuel/Inflation Fees*9 5.0% N/A N/A N/A
Affiliate/Referrals*10 Up to 10.0% Up to 15% 4.0% or 2.0% 10.0% (Tier 1), Subscribe to (Tier 20)
Merchant Fee*11 Min $0.99/item or $39.99/mo, + Fees 2.9% + $0.30 3.0% + $0.25 2.8% + $0.28
Rank Subscriptions*12 N/A N/A N/A $0 - $789.89
Third Party Signup*13 No Yes Yes No

We don't aggregate payments. You're truly independent

Unlike Amazon, eBay, Etsy and other selling platforms, who aggregate payments (where buyers pay the company, then the company pays you), we provide sellers with an individual merchant account under their own names and identities, all vetted by FinCen regulations and major banks. The benefits are obvious: 1. We can't hold your Merchant funds, reverse your sales, or otherwise appropriate the funds in your Merchant account. You are Truly your own business with your own, independent, bank merchant account. 2. We have no incentive to work against you (the other companies are 'adversarial') as we don't adjudicate disputes among buyers/sellers. We provide a software based returns service that allows you to independently determine how you will handle a dispute with a buyer/seller. Other companies like to pick winners and losers and, with so called "Protection" policies, they have a huge incentive to side with buyers, leaving the seller out in the cold. 3. We're not exposed to credit card chargebacks, product liabilities, or other potential financial liabilities related to handling Seller funds. This means that we don't have to find a way to make-up for our losses by taking it out on our Sellers, in favor of unscrupulous buyers. Hence, we don't offer ANY official 'protection' for buyers or sellers, other than what they can get directly from a banking institution. Our job is to provide tools to help you manage this process as fairly and equitably as possible on your own.


We are a payment facilitator only

TradeMast does not handle any money in transactions between buyers and sellers. Instead, we offer a software service that allows buyers to make purchases from sellers via a secured third-party Application Programming Interface (API), on behalf of sellers, initiated solely by buyers. Trademast is not involved in the transaction in any way. A seller's merchant account token, and a price, is presented via a third party, independently secured, connection that presents a payment form where the buyer enters their credit card information to complete their purchase. The company either receives a response as "accepted" or "denied" and we update your sales records accordingly. The Company does not store any identifiable financial information from buyers or sellers. At the most, we maintain a secured 'token' that represents a payment option, but is only useful via the third party API as restricted by our domain name. All sellers are protected from credit card fraud by the underwriting bank for their sub-merchant account. If the bank refuses a payment, no transaction occurs and no fee is charged.


Free Merchant accounts

TradeMast provides sellers with the ability to obtain a 'free' Merchant account. By 'free' we mean, there is no charge to obtain a Merchant account, and there is no monthly charge to maintain the account. Members should expect a discount rate of 2.8% of the transaction total, plus $0.28 per transaction as part of our agreement with our payment facilitator. These fees are levied by the underwriting bank and are not under the control of Trademast. Sellers, with valid Merchant accounts, are able to negotiate terms with the underwriting bank (or agency) to increase their per-tansaction dollar limits, monthly transaction limits, and their discount rates, dependent upon your individual merchant volumes, and general financial history, with the underwriting bank.


Lower Merchant Fees

TradeMast negotiated on your behalf to find a way to reduce your discount rate and per transaction rate for accepting payment from your buyer customers. Our goal was to meet or beat the competition for causal sellers. TradeMast can offer smaller sellers a rate of 2.8% + $0.28 per transaction. In addition, these rates are negotiable, with your underwiting Bank, as you establish a consistent sales history.


No listing fees

TradeMast doesn't currently charge a listing fee. This saves you money and makes your finances easier to predict and manage. As we grow our platform, and begin to add services, and other offerings, we may require a specific fee for these offerings. This might include classified ads, real estate listings, motor vehicle listings, or other 'listings' that may likely not involve a payment between a buyer or seller on the platform, but potentially consumated off-platform. Our goal is to keep these fees as low as possible to remain competitive while also capable of sustaining growth. Fees will tend to change over time, dependent upon prevailing legislation, costs, or other economic factors beyond our control.


Free storefront and link

TradeMast offers every member, even members who are buyers only, a very basic storefront (landing page). This allows you to: 1. Have a landing page for any potential referrals. A potential member hits your storefront and your member name is conveniently pre-populated in their Registration so that you get credit for that referral if they join TradeMast. 2. Showcase your goods and reputation as a seller. 3. Basic storefronts are totally free. Additional features will be introduced in the future for Subscribing members. 4. Each storefront URL is formatted like TradeMast.com/store/[YourUserName]


Unmatched referral program

TradeMast offers every member the ability to earn a 10% reward on the Trade Fees we collect at the time of each sale. These rewards, known as "Trade Credits", are credited to your account, for every completed sale by your direct referrals when they pay their outstanding Account Balance. This reward is credited to your account in the form of a redeemable coupon (called a "Trade Credit") and can be used to offset various fees on the platform or sold back to TradeMast less a $0.70 conversion fee. This allows you to "convert" Trade Credits to cash and have it deposited in your Commission-Only or Merchant account. Rewards are based on the Trade Fee we collect, not on the sales price of the item/service, so these rewards are lower than you may expect from other platforms who must charge higher sales fees to accommodate higher rewards.

You don't have to sell anything to earn Trade Credit coupons. There is a $19.95/yr fee for a "Commission Only" account for those who choose not to sell but want to earn Trade Credit rewards by referring SELLERS to the TradeMast platform.

Optional subscriptions for experienced networkers

TradeMast offers optional Monthly Subscriptions for various ranks of membership that enable you to earn higher rewards (Trade Credits) from your referrals, and even referrals of referrals (Maximum 20 tiers!). These subscriptions last for 30 days, and allow you to temporarily earn rewards, at various percentages on each tier, for the given rank you have subscribed to. Your rank is reviewed at every sale that you may be eligble to earn rewards on so that we reset subscriptions if they have expired. This helps protect all members, and the Company, from uneccessary expense when determing eligibility for any rewards on a given sale in real time. Experienced networkers should definitely consider consider introducing their networks to TradeMast Today, and begin to build out a deep referral tree (of Sellers), as soon as possible, to enable maximum lifetime rewards. See our Founders program information below to see how you can eliminate a monthly Rank subscription.

Higher rewards

TradeMast offers 7 Membership ranks, or Tiers, with each higher tier providing a specific percentage reward, for deeper referrals, based upon the fees we collect for a completed sale. Our Ambassador Tier offers an unheard of 20 Tiers of referral rewards representing a total of up to 50% of the fees we collect! Yes, that's right. We're willing to offer rewards to our Members, who recommend sellers who sign up as their "Referrer" and pay out a maximum of 50% of our gross revenue. Of course, a perfect scenario, requires all upline members be subscribed, or are a Founder, at a tier that allows them to receive a reward on the sale at that tier. It will happen, expecially with seasoned networkers and those who have significant MLM networks already built with other companies. They know how to take advantage of such program to maximize their income; that's why we offer this optional program. Referrals are basically Free advertising, so we can focus on building more services and not worry about a gigantic marketing budget. You're rewarded by helping us to reward you. It's a nice circle of goodness.

Collusion prevention

TradeMast requires that you have enough Trade Credits on balance (a positive balance, over and above any Account Balance you may have) to offset your subscription at any given rank. In other words, purchases of ANY Monthly Rank Subcription, requires that you have enough Trade Credits accrued to fully pay for the Subscription you desire. In this way, we prevent Members from abusing the referral system by requiring that you are 'earning' enough Trade Credit rewards to make your Rank Subscription profitable for you. By preventing members from buying subscriptions with a credit card, we eliminate the risk of chargebacks, and prevent 'stacking' of referrals in an attempt to earn unjust rewards from potentially fraudulent, or likely to be reversed, credit card transactions through "ponzi schemes". Credit cards can be used only for our Founders Program, described next...and those infrequent situations where your Account Balance may be higher than your offsetting Trade Credit Balance.

Founders program

TradeMast offers members, in good standing, an option to purchase a permanent Member Rank which enables them to avoid a monthly subscription at that same rank. Once a rank is purchased, your base rank is set to the rank you purchased, allowing you to earn from each tier in that rank. Subscriptions are still required to take advantage of higher ranks, if you are not at "Ambassador" rank.


Security

TradeMast doesn't store ANY identifiable credit card, or bank account, information. In the event that we are attacked by criminal hackers or rogue entities, there is nothing of value for the perpetrator to steal. With that said, any delivery address information, or personal information, such as name, addresses, email address are the maximum personal data that could be compromised. Given that you are required to provide a real name and address to your sellers/buyers, for both delivery and refunds, this information is considered public information by the Company.

1. Financial information means credit card information and bank account information
*1 - TradeMast is a Payment Facilitator, not a Payment Aggregator. Therefore "Financial Control" and Independence means that you maintain an independent merchant account and we have no control over that account. Any "reserve" requirements are exclusively determined by you specific Merchant Account provider. TradeMast has no access to, or legal authority over, your merchant account. We are a facilitator, not a aggregator.
*2 - Based upon our research, it appears that only eBay offers something equivalent to a truly independent merchant account. But, it requires software integration (programming knowledge), and there could be various policies that allow eBay to hold, or claw back, funds before deposit to that merchant account. TradeMast has already integrated third party software APIs for you, so there is no extra work on your part. Once your merchant application is accepted, and "Ready" to process, you can begin selling right away. Typically this can occur immediately upon submission of the application for established entities with correct information.
*3 -
Amazon Merchants - Simple pricing for every business
Amazon - Creating a merchant account
eBay Fees - https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/store-fees?id=4809#section3
eBay store subscriptions - https://www.ebay.com/sub/subscriptions
eBay https://export.ebay.com/en/marketing/ebay-store/subscriptions-and-fees/
eBay Selling Limits - https://export.ebay.com/en/listings/limits/selling-limits/
eBay Holds on Funds - Did You Know eBay May Hold Funds of ‘Low Volume’ Sellers?
eBay eBay Merchant Accounts: A Comprehensive Guide
Etsy Holds on Funds - Etsy Begins Holding Seller Funds More Aggressively
Etsy Fees - https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-us/articles/115014483627-What-are-the-Fees-and-Taxes-for-Selling-on-Etsy
Amazon Selling Limits - https://sell.amazon.com/beginners-guide
Amazon Seller Fees - https://sellerengine.com/amazon-seller-fees-explained-2022-complete-guide/