Stoa · For merchants
I run a shop
Stoa is built so that your shop stays yours. Your inventory, your pricing, your relationship with the people who shop with you: they remain yours. Stoa is the surface; you are the shop.
What you keep
The margin. Stoa's fee is explicit, shown plainly on every transaction before it happens. No hidden cuts, no opaque "service fees" that mysteriously grow over time, no pressure to discount your way into visibility.
The relationship. The patron who finds you on Stoa is your patron. Their contact, their preferences, their history with your shop belong to you. Stoa does not sell the relationship back to you.
The listing. What you sell, how you describe it, how you price it, when you're open: all yours to set. Stoa does not reorder your inventory by what makes Stoa more money, and patron reviews inform patrons. They never drive ranking or visibility.
The decision to leave. Your shop's listings, your patron list, your sales history are all exportable. If Stoa stops being useful to you, you walk away with everything you brought and everything you built.
What you bring
Your inventory (or your willingness to keep it current), your delivery capability if you offer it, and the standard of care you already bring to the people who walk through your door.
The Founding Shop chip
The first ten shops to list in each region become that region's Founding Shops, automatically, by order of listing, with nothing to apply for. Founding Shops carry an amber chip in the directory. The recognition is permanent. It never expires and never affects discoverability. It is the Institute's record of who built the surface alongside it.
How to start
When Stoa opens in your region, onboarding is open and self-serve. No allowlist, no invitations, no curated cohort. Until then, if you operate a local shop and want to bring it onto Stoa, write to merchants@sage-institute.org. A real person reads every message; expect a reply within a few business days.