Safe buying and selling on social media, built in under 2 months

We keep this client’s name private. The client is real, and so is the system.

Client: One of the Philippines’ largest non-bank financial companies, with more than 3,000 branches nationwide
Industry: Fintech and Social Commerce
Services: Product Design, Web Development, Platform Integration, Ongoing Engineering

The seller’s dashboard: the pending balance, held until a transaction completes, Buy Item and Sell Item, and recent activities from a live listing to items for drop-off, in transit, complete and returned. — The product’s own screens, white-labelled as SafeTrade: its name, logo, colours and type are ours, not the client’s. Names and figures on screen are samples.

The challenge

Lots of Filipinos buy and sell on Facebook and other social platforms, but buyers and sellers are strangers. The buyer worries about paying for something that never arrives. The seller worries about shipping and never getting paid. The client already had something online-only platforms don’t: thousands of trusted branches where people drop off, pick up, and pay.

What we built

We built an escrow service that sits between buyer and seller. The buyer pays first, and the client holds the money. The seller ships, and the buyer gets a set window to inspect the item. Once the buyer confirms, the money goes to the seller. If something goes wrong, the buyer gets the money back. The client’s branches serve as pickup and payment points. In version 2, we connected the service to the client’s other e-commerce, delivery, and payment services.

Listing an item: specs, condition, price and items on hand, five product photos, and the drop-off branch below.

The live listing’s QR card for sharing with a buyer: the item, the seller’s masked name and number, and Save and Share.

The buyer’s checkout: the item, an order summary with the shipping fee, return shipping deposit and total, and the pick-up branch chosen on a map of partner branches.

Order details: the item, its delivery from the seller to the drop-off branch and on to the buyer’s pick-up branch, and the purchase details with reference number, payment and date.

The result

Built in under 2 months, from signing to delivery.
Now an official service in the client’s product lineup, with a set fee, coverage limit, and pickup window.
The relationship grew from one build into ongoing engineering across the client’s e-commerce services.

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