🐝 What HiveShop is

HiveShop is a Philippine classifieds marketplace. Anyone can browse listings without an account; you only sign in when you want to post an item, save a favorite, or message a seller from your account.

🔐 Signing in

Open login.html (the Login button in the header, or Me in the bottom bar on a phone). There are four ways in — all land on the same account if they share the same mobile number or email address.

🏷️ Posting an item

Tap Sell (the pink circle in the middle of the bottom bar on a phone, or the Sell button in the header on a desktop). On a phone the form is a stepper — one step at a time; on a desktop every section is on one page with a section rail on the left.

1. Photos — drag files in, tap to browse, or use Take a photo. The first photo is the cover.
2. Details — title, category, brand, condition, price and quantity. Optional Smart fill box at the top can do most of this for you.
3. Specifications — the fields shown here depend on the category you picked (storage for a phone, size for shoes, and so on).
4. Variants — optional. Use it only when the same item comes in several colours or sizes.
5. Deal details — how you hand the item over, how you accept payment, your city, your contact number and the full description.
6. Review & publish — a summary plus a checklist of anything still missing. Tap Publish listing.

Title

8 to 120 characters. Write it the way a buyer would search: brand, model, then the detail that matters — “iPhone 13 128GB Midnight — complete with box” beats “Phone for sale”. As you type, HiveShop suggests the right category underneath.

Condition

Price

Enter pesos only — no commas needed. Under the field HiveShop shows what similar items in that category are going for (lowest, median and highest), so you can price competitively. Turn on Price is negotiable to invite offers, and use Compare-at price to show a struck-through “was” price.

📷 Photos

• The first photo is the cover — it is what buyers see in search results. Drag any photo to the first position to make it the cover.
• Reorder by dragging a thumbnail onto another one. The new order saves immediately.
• Remove with the ✕ on the thumbnail. This deletes the file permanently.
• Limit — up to 10 photos per listing by default (an administrator can change this).

What makes a photo sell

• Daylight, plain background, the whole item in frame.
• One close-up of every flaw — it prevents wasted trips and refund arguments.
• Include the box, charger, receipt or warranty card if you have them.
• Do not include your face, your address, or anything with your ID number on it.

✨ Smart fill (AI)

At the top of the Details step. Paste anything that describes your item — the text you already wrote for a Facebook post, a chat message, or the spec blurb from a product page — and tap Fill the form.

HiveShop reads it and fills the title, description, brand, condition, price, quantity, a suggested category and any specs it recognises. A status box below the button always tells you what happened; it never disappears on its own.

Smart fill is limited to 20 uses per hour per account. Nothing you type is lost if it fails: the form keeps whatever you had.

📐 Specifications & variants

Specifications

Each category carries its own set of fields — storage and RAM for phones, size and colour for clothes, transmission and fuel for vehicles. They appear automatically once you pick a category, and a red * marks the ones that are required. Filling them in matters: buyers filter on these fields, so a listing with them set shows up in far more searches.

Variants

Use variants only when you are selling the same item in more than one option — three colours of the same shirt, two storage tiers of the same phone. Do not use them for unrelated items; post those separately.

1. Pick up to two options that vary (for example Colour and Size).
2. Type each value and press Enter, or tap the suggested + value chips.
3. A combination table appears. Set a price, stock count and SKU per row — leave the price blank to use the main listing price.
4. Apply price to all / Apply stock to all fill every row at once.

🤝 Deal details

📦 My products

Dashboard → My products lists everything you have posted, with view, favourite and inquiry counts on each. The chips along the top filter by status.

Actions on each listing

• Edit — reopens the full sell form with everything filled in.
• Mark reserved / Mark sold / Hide — change status without editing.
• Relist as active — bring a sold or hidden item back.
• Renew listing — on an expired item; resets the expiry clock.
• Delete — removes it from HiveShop. There is a confirmation and it cannot be undone.

💬 Messages & offers

Signed-in buyers talk to sellers inside HiveShop. On any listing, Message seller opens a chat sheet (the button reads Continue chat once a thread already exists). Everything lands under Dashboard → Messages, the first tab, and the ✉️ icon in the header carries a count of everything unread.

• Threads with unread messages show a pink edge and a count; opening one marks it read.
• Messages refresh by themselves every few seconds while a thread is open.
• As the seller, the thread header carries Mark sold to <buyer> — that records who bought the item and invites them to rate you.
• Archive hides a finished thread without deleting anything.

📨 Inquiries

When a buyer sends a message from one of your listings it lands under Dashboard → Inquiries, and you also get an email and an SMS if your contact details are set. The tab shows a red count of unread messages.

• A pink dot and a pink edge mark an unread message. Opening it marks it read.
• Expand a message for the buyer's contact details plus Call, SMS, WhatsApp or Email buttons — whichever fits what they left.
• Type in the reply box and tap Send reply. HiveShop emails or texts your reply to the buyer and keeps it on the thread.
• Unread only filters the list down to what still needs an answer.

⭐ Reviews & ratings

Sellers carry a ★ average out of 5 with the number of reviews behind it. It shows on the product page's seller card, on the shop page header, and in chat — tapping it jumps to the shop page's Seller reviews section.

🚀 Promote a listing

Dashboard → Promote lists every active listing with the ways to push it in front of more buyers. Bumping moves the item back to the top of “Newest first”; featuring pins it to the Featured rail and gives the card a ★ badge.

Paying

• Tapping a paid option opens a secure PayMongo checkout (GCash, Maya or card). You return to the dashboard and the promotion goes live as soon as the payment clears.
• If the confirmation is slow, Check status on the order re-asks PayMongo.
• Pay manually creates an order with GCash instructions instead. Send the payment, upload a screenshot of the receipt, and an administrator activates it — usually within 24 hours.
• Every order is listed under Order history with its reference number and status.

❤️ Favorites

Tap the heart on any listing card or product page to save it. Dashboard → Favorites shows everything you have saved, with the current price — handy for watching whether a seller drops theirs. Tap the heart again to remove it.

👤 Profile & account

Dashboard → Profile holds everything buyers see about you plus your account settings.

Theme

The avatar menu in the header (and Me on a phone) has a light/dark toggle. Your choice is remembered on that device and applies to every HiveShop page.

🪪 Verified seller

A verified seller has had a government ID checked by a HiveShop administrator. Verified shops carry a ✓ on every listing and in search, and only they can switch on HiveShop Protect (below) so buyers can pay through escrow.

Getting verified

1. Go to Dashboard → Profile → 🛡️ Verified seller.
2. Type your full legal name exactly as printed on the ID, pick the ID type and enter the ID number.
3. Take a photo of the front of the ID (and the back if it has one), plus a selfie holding the ID. On a phone the camera opens straight away.
4. Tick the consent box and tap Submit for verification. The card then shows Under review.
5. You get an SMS and an email with the decision, usually within one business day.

If you are rejected

The card shows the reviewer's note. Fix what it says — usually a blurred photo, a cropped corner or a name that does not match — and submit again. There is no limit on resubmissions, but only three per day. An administrator can also revoke a verification later if something turns out to be wrong; your Protect listings stop accepting new orders, and existing orders finish normally.

Payout method

Right under the verification card, 💸 Payout method is where the money from a Protect sale goes: GCash, Maya or a bank account. GCash and Maya need an 11-digit number starting 09; a bank account needs the bank name too. You need both a verification and a payout method before the Protect toggle on the sell form unlocks.

🛡️ HiveShop Protect

HiveShop Protect is escrow. On a listing that shows the Protected shield, the buyer pays HiveShop instead of the seller. We hold the money and release it to the seller only once the buyer confirms the item arrived. Everything else on HiveShop is still arranged directly between the two of you.

For buyers

1. On a protected listing, tap Buy with HiveShop Protect (you need to be signed in).
2. The checkout sheet asks for the option and quantity, how you want it delivered, and — for courier or seller delivery — your address. Your last address is remembered on your device for next time.
3. Check the breakdown (subtotal + shipping = total) and tap Pay securely. You land on PayMongo and can pay with GCash, Maya or a card.
4. You come back to Dashboard → Orders → Buying. Follow the timeline: Paid → Shipped → Received → Paid out.
5. When the item arrives, tap Confirm receipt. If something is wrong, tap Open a dispute instead and the money stays held while an administrator looks at it.

For sellers

1. Get verified and add a payout method.
2. On the sell form's Deal details step, switch on 🛡️ HiveShop Protect and set a flat shipping fee (leave it at ₱0 for meet-up).
3. When a buyer pays, the order appears in Dashboard → Orders → Selling and the stock comes off your listing.
4. Ship it, then tap Mark as shipped and enter the courier and tracking number. The buyer is notified straight away.
5. Once the buyer confirms (or 7 days pass), the order becomes Payout due and HiveShop sends the money to your payout method, recording the reference on the order.

Before you ship you can still Cancel & refund the order — the buyer is refunded in full and the stock goes back on the listing. After shipping, only an administrator can refund.

Order statuses

For administrators

• Admin → Escrow shows every Protect order with three KPIs: money held in escrow, payouts due, and open disputes. Filter by status or search by order number.
• Open on a row shows the full fee breakdown, the delivery address, the PayMongo payment id and every event on the order.
• On a disputed order you either Release to seller or Refund the buyer (a real PayMongo refund; the stock is restored). A note is required either way.
• On a completed order, send the money yourself, then Mark as paid out with the transfer reference — the seller is notified.
• On a paid or shipped order that has gone wrong (a seller who vanished), Refund the buyer refunds it in full.
• Admin → Dashboard carries Protect GMV and Protect fees tiles plus a GMV-per-day chart.

✨ Fill from photos

Once at least one photo is uploaded on the sell form, a ✨ Fill from photos button appears under the photo grid. It sends your first three photos to an AI vision model, which writes the listing for you.

Getting a good read

• Shoot the whole item, in daylight, against a plain background.
• Include a photo of any label, model number or box — that is where the brand and specs come from.
• Photograph defects too; the AI describes what it sees, and an honest listing gets fewer disputes.

It is limited to 15 runs per hour per account. The older ✨ Smart fill box on the Details step still works if you would rather paste text than rely on photos — and you can run both.

🛡️ Admin console

Administrators get an extra Admin entry in the avatar menu leading to admin.html. Anyone else who opens that URL sees a friendly “Administrators only” card — no data is exposed.

🌱 Seed demo data at the top right inserts the demo sellers and sample listings. It is safe to run more than once — it skips itself if the demo seller already exists.

🚩 Moderation & strikes

Approving listings

When Settings → New listings need admin approval is on, everything published lands as Pending review. Filter Products by that status and use Approve or Reject. A rejection needs a reason, and that reason is shown to the seller on their dashboard and at the top of their edit form, so write something they can act on.

Reports

Buyers can report a listing as prohibited, counterfeit, a scam, wrongly categorised, offensive, or other. The Reports tab defaults to Open:

• Reviewed — you have looked, nothing to do yet.
• Actioned — you changed or removed the listing.
• Dismissed — the report was not valid.

Each change can carry an admin note for the next person who looks. Reported listings show a 🚩 count in the Products table, and the Reported only filter narrows to them.

Strikes

A repeat offender needs more than a status change. Next to the three status buttons, ⚡ Action + strike marks the report Actioned and adds one strike to the seller of the reported listing.

• The Users table has a Strikes column — amber at one or two, red at three.
• At three strikes the account is disabled automatically and every one of that seller's active listings is switched to Inactive. The change is written to the admin activity log.
• If a strike was a mistake, Reset strikes on the user row puts the counter back to zero. Re-enabling a disabled account is a separate step in Edit user.
• Strikes are internal — buyers never see a seller's strike count, only the ★ rating.

Reviews

The Reviews tab lists every seller review with its rating, text and the seller's reply, newest first, and can be narrowed to one seller ID. Hide takes an abusive or off-topic review out of the public list and out of the seller's average; Unhide puts it back.

Sales

The Sales tab is the promotion ledger: every order with its reference, seller, listing, package, amount and status. Filter by status — manual orders sit at Pending until you check the uploaded proof.

• View in the Proof column opens the receipt the seller uploaded.
• Activate applies the package to the listing right away — the same code path a paid PayMongo webhook runs — and can carry a note.
• Cancel closes an order that was never paid.
• The Dashboard tab carries a Promo revenue tile and a revenue-per-day chart.

Featuring

Feature pins a listing to the featured rail with a star badge, either until a date you pick or indefinitely. Unfeature removes it. Sellers can also buy this themselves — see Promote a listing.

🗂️ Categories

The category tree drives search filters, the specification fields on the sell form, and the category suggester. Two levels: top-level categories and their sub-categories.

Keywords

A comma-separated list of the words buyers actually type — synonyms, abbreviations and Filipino terms included (cellphone, cp, phone, iphone, samsung, telepono). The suggester scores a title against these, weighting longer keywords more heavily. The Test the category suggester box at the top of the tab lets you type a real title and see what comes back, so you can tune keywords until the right category wins.

Attribute schema

A JSON array describing the specification fields for that category. It is validated as you type — a bad entry turns the box red and explains what is wrong, and Format JSON tidies it up.

[
  { "key": "storage", "label": "Storage", "type": "select",
    "options": ["64GB","128GB","256GB","512GB","1TB"],
    "required": true, "variant": true, "unit": "GB" },
  { "key": "color", "label": "Colour", "type": "select",
    "options": ["Black","White","Blue","Red"], "variant": true }
]

❓ FAQ & troubleshooting

My code never arrived

Check the number format (09XXXXXXXXX) and your spam folder for email codes. You can request a new code every 60 seconds. If it keeps failing, use a different method — Google or email OTP — and tell an administrator, who can see the outcome in the OTP logs.

My listing is not showing in search

Check its status on the dashboard. Drafts, pending, expired, hidden and rejected listings are not searchable. If it is Active, confirm the category and city are set — most buyers arrive through a filter.

A photo will not upload

HEIC photos from an iPhone are rejected; set Camera → Formats → Most Compatible on the phone, or share the photo to yourself first to convert it to JPEG. Files above 15MB are also rejected before resizing.

Can I edit a listing after publishing?

Yes, any time and as often as you like — Edit on the dashboard. Changes go live as soon as you save.

How long does a listing last?

60 days by default, then it becomes Expired and stops appearing in search. Renew listing puts it back with a fresh clock.

How do I install HiveShop on my phone?

It is a PWA. In Safari use Share → Add to Home Screen; in Chrome use ⋮ → Install app. It then opens like an app, without the browser bar.

Who do I contact?

The contact email is on the Terms and Privacy pages, and administrators can change it under Settings.