No product ownership
There is no owner column on a product. What looks like ownership in other platforms is split into three independent mechanisms:| Mechanism | What it controls | What it does not control |
|---|---|---|
Selling eligibility (product_seller link) | Which sellers may sell the product and see it while restricted | Who can edit the product |
| Creator attribution | Which unpublished products appear in a seller’s own list | Any rights over the product after publication |
| Status lifecycle | Who can see the product at all | Which seller it “belongs” to |
Selling eligibility
Theproduct_seller link is an allowlist, analogous to Medusa’s product_sales_channel link:
- Restricted — a product assigned to one or more sellers is visible and sellable only for those sellers.
- Unrestricted — a product with no seller assignments is available to every seller on the marketplace (subject to its status).
Creator attribution
When a product is created, the platform records who created it as part of the product’s change history. This attribution has exactly one purpose: scoping vendor lists so a seller sees their own not-yet-published submissions without seeing other sellers’ pending work.Status lifecycle
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
draft | Work in progress, not submitted |
proposed | Submitted for review — visible only to its creator until published |
published | Live in the shared catalog |
rejected | Declined by the operator |
proposed. The operator reviews the submission and publishes or rejects it — see Product Requests & Approvals.
Visibility rules
| Surface | What is visible |
|---|---|
| Vendor | Products the seller created (any status) plus published products not restricted to other sellers |
| Admin | Every product, regardless of status or eligibility |
| Store | Published products of visible sellers |
Editing shared products
Because the catalog is shared, edits are collaborative: any seller may request a change to any product — updating details, adding or removing variants, changing attributes. Edits flow through the change-request pipeline rather than mutating the product directly, so the operator stays in control of the shared record. Eligibility restrictions limit who may sell a product; they do not limit who may propose changes to it.What sellers actually sell
A master product defines what the item is. It carries no seller price and no seller stock. To sell it, a seller creates an offer — their own SKU, price, inventory, and shipping profile bound to the product. This separation is what allows many sellers to compete on the same catalog entry.Next steps
Offers
How sellers list, price, and stock products from the shared catalog.
Product Requests & Approvals
How new products and edits are reviewed by the operator.