In Part 1, we installed Bagisto, added the Marketplace extension, and created our first seller.
That got the plumbing in place - but a marketplace is only as good as the sellers on it, and getting sellers onto the platform is a workflow, not a single button.
This part covers the vendor journey — from joining the marketplace to managing their shop, along with the controls available to marketplace owners.
Why Sellers Are the Core of a Bagisto Multi-Vendor Marketplace
The defining trait of a marketplace is that the owner doesn't manage the catalog. Sellers do.
Each vendor registers, creates their store, manages their own catalog, and handles their own orders.
The platform's job shifts from selling products to running the venue - deciding who gets in, what they're allowed to do, and keeping quality high.
That split of responsibility is what makes vendor management the backbone of the whole system.
If sellers can't onboard smoothly, there's no catalog. If anyone can start selling instantly with no checks, quality and trust collapse.
And if every seller could see every other seller's orders, the model wouldn't work at all.
So the marketplace owner needs a handful of levers:
- Approval - control over who is allowed to sell.
- Permissions - control over what each seller can and can't do.
- Quality - profiles, policies, and reviews that keep the storefront trustworthy.
This part covers the complete seller workflow in Bagisto, including registration, approvals, profiles, permissions, and vendor dashboard operations.
Similar to previous workflows, most product management actions happen through the GUI instead of custom code.
The marketplace extension provides these workflows, while we focus on understanding and configuring them.
Bagisto Seller Registration: How Vendors Sign Up
Onboarding starts on the storefront, not the admin panel. A seller signs themselves up, and the marketplace owner reviews the request afterward.
The entry point is the REGISTER AS A SELLER link on the storefront. Clicking it takes a logged-in user to the seller registration page, where they sign up as a seller.
On the registration form, the seller provides:
- Name
- Password
- Shop Title - the display name of their store
-
Shop URL - the slug their public shop lives at (e.g.
/marketplace/peters-shop) - Any custom fields the admin has marked as visible on signup
One nice detail: the signup fields are attribute-based.
The admin can create custom seller attributes for the signup page to collect required vendor details, such as KYC documents, tax IDs, or business categories, without any coding.
Once registered, sellers can log in, but their ability to start selling depends on the marketplace approval configuration.
flowchart TD
A[Seller clicks Open Shop] --> B[Fills registration form + Shop URL]
B --> C[Seller account created]
C --> D{Seller Approval Required?}
D -->|No| E[Seller active immediately]
D -->|Yes| F[Status: pending admin review]
F --> G[Admin approves]
G --> E
Why the registration workflow matters. Self-service signup keeps onboarding scalable - the owner isn't manually creating every account.
Seller approval helps marketplace owners verify vendors, control access, and maintain a trusted selling environment.
Seller Approval Workflow in Bagisto (Admin Controls)
Most real marketplaces don't let a brand-new registrant start selling instantly.
A review step gives the owner a chance to vet sellers before they appear on the storefront.
Whether that step exists is a configuration choice. In the admin panel, under the Marketplace Configure settings, the Seller Approval Required option decides it:
- Yes - new registrations arrive as pending and can't sell until approved.
- No - sellers go live the moment they register.
To manage requests, go to:
Admin Panel → Marketplace → Sellers
This screen lists every registered seller with their current status (approved / not approved), reflecting the approval setting above.
There are two ways to act on a seller:
- Mass update - tick the checkbox next to one or more sellers, open the dropdown, choose Update, then Approve or Disapprove. Good for clearing a batch of pending requests at once.
- Individual update - click the approve/disapprove icon on a single seller's row.
From the same area, admins can manage more than seller status.
They can assign products, configure allowed product types, set custom commissions, and manage suspension settings.
The Marketplace → Sellers section acts as the control center for seller identity, access, and platform permissions.
We'll explore commissions and payouts in Part 4; here, the focus is on managing the seller approval workflow.
Setting Up a Seller Profile and Storefront in Bagisto
Once approved, a seller's profile becomes their public storefront - the page customers land on when browsing that vendor.
A complete, professional profile is what turns an anonymous account into a shop customers trust.
Sellers manage this under Manage Profile in their dashboard. The key pieces:
- Logo and banner - the visual identity shown on the shop page.
- Shop Title - the store name (mandatory).
- Shop URL - the address customers use to reach the shop.
- Store address - full address, city, postcode, country, and state.
- Phone Number - a contact number, which must be unique per seller.
- Business Description -a description of the shop and what it sells.
- Social Links - Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn.
- Meta title & description - for search engine visibility of the shop page.
- Policies - shipping, return, and privacy policies, kept transparent for buyers.
A helpful touch here is the profile score shown on the seller dashboard - a completion indicator that nudges sellers to finish filling out their profile.
From the customer's side, a complete seller profile helps shoppers understand who they are buying from.
Visible details like store information, policies, and contact details help build trust before placing an order.
A well-maintained profile improves seller credibility and creates a better marketplace experience.
On a marketplace where the platform isn't the merchant, that trust layer is what makes buyers comfortable.
Seller Roles and Permissions in Bagisto Marketplace
A marketplace runs on controlled access. The rule of thumb is simple:
Seller A should manage:
- ✅ Their own products
- ✅ Their own orders
- ✅ Their own profile
Seller A should not touch:
- ❌ Seller B's products or orders
- ❌ Marketplace-wide settings
Bagisto's marketplace enforces this on three levels, and it's worth seeing them as distinct.
1. Built-in isolation. Every seller only ever sees their own products, orders, and customers in their dashboard.
Marketplace configuration lives in the admin panel, which sellers have no access to.
This separation is structural - it's how the extension is built, not something you have to wire up.
2. Admin-defined seller permissions. From the Marketplace configuration and the seller's admin record, the owner decides what capabilities each seller has.
These include whether a seller can:
- Create invoices
- Create shipments
- Cancel orders
- View customer details
- Which product types they're allowed to create or assign
- Which categories they're restricted from (via Restricted Category)
This is the layer where the platform owner draws the line between a fully autonomous seller and a more supervised one.
3. Seller-defined sub-seller roles. Sellers can also delegate within their own shop. Under Settings → Users and Settings → Role, a seller can:
- Create a custom role and select exactly which actions it grants (an access-control list).
- Create sub-sellers (staff accounts) - name, email, unique phone, role, status, password - and assign them a role.
Why this matters. Access control isn't a nicety - it's the security boundary of the whole platform.
Without it, one seller could read another's orders or customer data, or a staff member could be handed powers they shouldn't have.
Combining platform-level controls, seller permissions, and seller-managed roles helps marketplaces scale securely.
It allows sellers to grow from individual vendors to larger teams while keeping access and responsibilities clearly separated.
Inside the Bagisto Seller Dashboard: A Vendor's Workspace
The seller dashboard is the main workspace where vendors manage their marketplace activities.
It works separately from the storefront and admin panel, showing only data related to that specific seller.
The main dashboard areas include:
- Dashboard - sales overview with a bar graph, top-selling products, top customers, and stock thresholds. The seller's at-a-glance view of how the shop is doing.
- Profile - the Manage Profile screen from Section 3.
- Products - the seller's own catalog: create new products, assign existing ones ("Sell Yours"), and edit or delete listings. (We go deep on this in Part 3.)
- Orders - orders for this seller's items, where they can generate invoices, create shipments, and cancel - subject to the permissions the admin granted.
- Reviews - product and seller reviews left by customers, which the seller can monitor.
- Transactions - total sales, total payout received, and remaining (unpaid) payout, plus the list of payout transactions. (More on payouts in Part 4.)
- Customers - customers who've bought from this seller, with order counts.
- Settings - password, locale, sub-seller users and roles, and inventory sources.
In daily operations, sellers use the dashboard to track new orders, inventory updates, and marketplace activities.
They can process orders through the fulfillment flow, manage invoices and shipments, and respond to customer interactions.
The dashboard also helps sellers keep their product catalog updated and manage their store efficiently.
Everything they do is confined to their own shop - which is exactly what the permission model guarantees.
Wrapping up Part 2
In this part we walked through the full seller lifecycle:
- Vendor onboarding - self-service registration from the storefront
- Approval workflow - the admin gate that controls who can sell
- Seller profiles - the public storefront and the trust it builds
- Roles and permissions - isolation, admin-set capabilities, and sub-seller roles
- The vendor dashboard - how sellers operate day to day
In Part 3, we will explore Product Management and understand how sellers create and manage products inside the marketplace.
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