Guides /Orders /Orders & Checkout

🛒 Orders & Checkout

⏱ 12 min read 📋 6 steps 🎯 Beginner 👥 All Buyers (B2C & B2B)

Learn how to browse the Africa Conglomerate marketplace, add products to your cart, configure shipping, submit an order, and track its progress through to delivery.

Before you begin

A verified account (see Account Setup)
B2B users: company must be approved (your delivery address is entered at checkout)
B2C buyers: at least one saved payment method under Payments → Payment Methods (/payments/saved/). Without one, checkout redirects you to that page before anything else happens. B2B buyers are exempt — their payment path is invoice/approval (see Payments & Invoicing)

Part 1 — Browse the Catalog & Build Your Cart

Browse or Search for Products

From the sidebar, click Shop → Browse Products (B2C) or Orders → Browse Products (B2B) to open the shop at /catalog/shop/, or use the search bar at the top of the page. You can filter results by:

Category — narrow by product type
Seller — find products from a specific company
Vertical — agriculture, arts & crafts, tours, shipping, general
Price range — set a min and max budget
In stock only — hide products with no available stock

📸 Screenshot: Marketplace Browse Page Shows the catalog grid with filter sidebar on the left, product cards with images and prices, and the search bar at the top. /static/guides/images/orders/01-browse-marketplace.png

View a Product & Add to Cart

Click on a product card to open its detail page. Review the description, images, pricing tiers, and available stock. Enter the quantity you want to order and click Add to Cart.

If a product with inventory tracking shows the Out of Stock badge, the Add to Cart button is disabled and the item cannot be added. Adding more units than are available is also refused with an explanatory message.

📸 Screenshot: Product Detail Page Shows the product page with image gallery, description, pricing tier table, quantity input, and the "Add to Cart" button. /static/guides/images/orders/02-product-detail.png

Tip If you are a B2B buyer, check the pricing tier table on the product page — ordering above a volume threshold automatically applies the discounted price.

Review Your Cart

Click the Cart icon in the top navigation to open your cart. Here you can:

Adjust quantities with the − / + steppers (or type a number) — totals update without a page reload
Remove items you no longer want with the trash icon (you will be asked to confirm)
See the subtotal, tax and total in the Order Summary. When the cart is not priced in USD an indicative ≈ USD equivalent is shown; the actual charge is always in the seller's currency
If items from two sellers are priced in different currencies, each seller's total is shown in its own currency and each is charged separately

📸 Screenshot: Cart Page Shows the cart with line items, quantity steppers, remove buttons, and the order summary panel on the right. /static/guides/images/orders/03-cart-review.png

Note on Multi-Seller Carts Products from more than one seller can share a cart only when every seller is on a commission plan (the platform collects one payment and settles each seller). If your cart already holds a subscription seller's product, adding a product from any other seller is refused with "Your cart already contains items from <Seller>. Please complete or clear your current cart before adding items from a different seller." At checkout a multi-seller cart is split into one order per seller.

Part 2 — Checkout & Submit Your Order

Enter a Delivery Address

Click Proceed to Checkout from the cart to open /checkout/. In the Delivery Address card choose one of two options:

Enter Address — fill in first name, last name, address line 1, city, state/region, country and phone (all required; address line 2 and postal code are optional)
Drop Pin on Map — place a pin on the map (or use your current location); the address and country are detected from the pin

📸 Screenshot: Delivery Address Card Shows the "Enter Address" / "Drop Pin on Map" toggle, the address form fields, and the map with a dropped pin. /static/guides/images/orders/04-delivery-address.png

Check the Shipping Estimate

You do not pick a carrier — the seller does that when they dispatch. The Order Summary shows a Shipping line that reads Drop a pin for estimate until you drop a delivery pin. After a pin drop:

Domestic delivery — a zone-based fee is estimated (or "to be confirmed" if no zone covers the pin) and added to the total
International delivery (pin in a different country from the seller) — the line shows International — quoted separately with an Intl badge. No shipping fee is invented and duties are not in the total; they are quoted separately by the seller

International orders Cross-border orders are currently accepted from B2B buyers only, and only when the seller has opted in to international shipping and allows your country. Agricultural products cannot be shipped across a border. If any of these rules fail, Place Order returns you to checkout with the reason.

📸 Screenshot: Shipping Estimate Shows the Order Summary with the shipping line after a pin drop (domestic fee) and the "International — quoted separately" state. /static/guides/images/orders/05-shipping-method.png

Choose a Payment Method, Place the Order & Pay

In the Payment Method card select one of the methods offered for this seller. No option is pre-selected unless one of them matches your saved default (it is then pre-checked and labelled "Your saved default"). Mobile money methods ask for your phone number and let you save it for next time. Review the Order Summary (items, tax, shipping, total) and click Place Order.

B2C buyers: after Place Order your cart is emptied, stock is reserved, you receive an "Order #N confirmed" notification and email (the seller receives "New Order #N"), and you are taken to the payment page to complete the charge (card, PayPal, or mobile money as selected). Once the payment succeeds the Order Confirmation page shows your order number and the order moves straight to Awaiting Dispatch. If stock changed while you were checking out, you are returned to your intact cart with an explanation and no payment is taken.

📸 Screenshot: Order Summary / Review Screen Shows the payment method radios, the order summary with line items, shipping, tax breakdown, and the "Place Order" button at the bottom. /static/guides/images/orders/06-order-summary.png

📸 Screenshot: Order Confirmation Page Shows the success screen with the order number and links to "View Order" and "Continue Shopping". /static/guides/images/orders/07-order-confirmation.png

Payment Not Available If the seller cannot be paid yet — a commission seller who has not finished Stripe Connect onboarding, a subscription seller with no payment method enabled, or a cart mixing sellers whose payouts use different processors — the Payment Method card shows a red notice and the Place Order button is disabled. Contact the seller or remove their items; no order is created.

B2B Approval Required For B2B buyers Place Order creates a Draft order (one per seller). Open it, review, and submit it for approval — it then enters Pending Approval and an authorised approver must approve it before payment is charged and it is sent to the seller. See the Approval Workflow guide.

Part 3 — Track Your Order

After your order is placed (and approved, for B2B), you can monitor its progress from Orders → My Orders (/orders/mine/). Click View on an order to open its detail page with the status timeline.

📸 Screenshot: My Orders with Status Badges Shows the My Orders cards with order number, date placed, item count, total, and status badge (e.g. Awaiting Dispatch, Dispatched, Delivered). /static/guides/images/orders/08-orders-list.png

Each order progresses through the following statuses:

Draft — B2B order created but not yet submitted
Pending Approval — awaiting B2B approver action
Approved / Paid — transient; the order advances automatically once payment is charged or confirmed
Awaiting Seller Acceptance — B2B net-terms order waiting for the seller to accept the credit
Invoiced — B2B mobile-money payment initiated; confirm on your phone
Payment Failed — the charge failed; use Retry Payment on the order
Awaiting Dispatch — paid; in the seller's dispatch queue
Dispatched — handed to a carrier or platform transporter; the carrier and tracking reference are posted in the order conversation
Delivered — the transporter has marked it delivered and an OTP was sent to you; read the code to the transporter to sign off
Completed — OTP confirmed; the order is closed
Rejected / Cancelled — rejected by an approver, or cancelled

Cancelling an order Only Draft and Pending Approval orders can be cancelled by the buyer (the Cancel button on the My Orders card). Once an order is approved or paid, contact support — there is no self-service cancellation or refund after checkout.

📸 Screenshot: Order Detail Page with Timeline Shows the order detail view with a status timeline, the delivery address, and a line items breakdown below. /static/guides/images/orders/09-order-detail-timeline.png

What's Next?

✅ Approval Workflows 💳 Payments & Invoicing 💬 Communications