Offer Request Bulk Buy

Sourdough starter — ~150g

Urgent

Maya · expires Sat · pickup at house

The Marketplace is where surplus, needs, and group purchases find each other. Three kinds of listing, each with its own rhythm.

Offer — "I have this, who wants it?"

Surplus that would otherwise go to waste. Common items:

Garden surplus (zucchini in August, kale through winter)
Sourdough starter, kefir grains, kombucha SCOBYs
Old lumber, fabric, building materials
Skills you're glad to give away ("happy to look at anyone's bike this weekend")

Mark perishable Offers as Urgent. Urgent listings push to the top and, if your Sanctuary is federated, can reach connected Sanctuaries within minutes.

Request — "I need this, who can help?"

Asking publicly is a community-building act, not a weakness. Useful for:

Rides ("airport, Wed 6am")
Specific tools you don't have ("borrowing a sewing machine for a weekend")
Skills ("anyone got an hour to look at a tax question?")
Items you're hunting for second-hand

The hardest part of a Request is writing it. Be concrete. "Looking for help" is no help to anyone. "Looking for someone with chainsaw experience to take down two dead pines, Saturday morning, can offer lunch and a lift home" is a request someone can answer.

Bulk Buy — "Let's order together"

For larger purchases that get cheaper at volume. A 50kg sack of rice, a pallet of mason jars, a bulk fabric order. The listing tracks who's pledged how much; the organiser places the order when the group hits a threshold.

Bulk Buys lean on trust — usually the organiser fronts the money and gets reimbursed via the Ledger. For larger Bulk Buys, log the spend as a cash Contribution; everyone who pledged settles their share through the same Ledger entry.

Keeping the page tidy

The Marketplace's failure mode is "ten-month-old listings nobody bothered to close." Two habits prevent it:

Set an expiry date on perishable Offers and event-tied Requests
Close your own listings when fulfilled. Two clicks. The page stays useful.

Stewards can run a quarterly sweep, closing anything stale.

Federation

If you're federated, you can mark individual Listings as visible to connected Sanctuaries. Most aren't worth federating (your sourdough starter doesn't need to reach four villages). Bulk Buys often are — sharing a wholesale order across two communities makes the maths work.

For the philosophy

See Barter and gifts: using the Exchange for the longer take on why circulating abundance beats hoarding it.