Getting paid

Storefront businesses take payment through Stripe Connect (Express). LocalFor.Me never touches card details — Stripe handles the checkout, the payout to your bank, and your tax/identity (KYC) checks. You manage all of this from Manage → Payouts.

Setting up payouts

1. Go to Manage → Payouts for your business.
2. Start onboarding. We create a Stripe Express account for you and send you to Stripe to complete it.
3. On Stripe, provide your business details, identity documents and bank account so you can be paid.
4. When you're done, Stripe returns you to the Payouts page.

Behind the scenes, your account gets a Stripe ID straight away, but you can't take payments until Stripe has finished its checks. Two flags track this:

• Charges enabled — you can accept payments at checkout.
• Payouts enabled — Stripe can send money to your bank.

Both start switched off and flip on once onboarding is complete and verified.

Tip: If your Payouts page looks out of date just after finishing on Stripe, refresh it — we re-check your status with Stripe when you return, rather than waiting for Stripe's background update to arrive.

What actually enables checkout

For the Browse shop / checkout flow to appear on your public profile, all of the following must be true:

• Your business is approved and set to storefront selling.
• You've completed Stripe onboarding so charges enabled is on.
• On-platform payments are switched on globally by the LocalFor.Me team.

Until every condition is met, your profile still shows your items but the checkout button stays off. If your Stripe checks lapse, we simply pause checkout and it recovers automatically once Stripe re-enables charges — your settings are preserved.

The platform fee

LocalFor.Me charges a small platform fee (commission) on each storefront sale, taken automatically at checkout as a Stripe application fee. The rest is transferred to your connected account. By default the fee is 2% of the order subtotal, though the platform can configure this. When you issue a refund, the platform fee on the refunded portion is returned too.

Payouts

Payouts to your bank are handled entirely by Stripe on its standard schedule. You can review your balance, payout history and bank details directly in your Stripe Express dashboard.

Manual approval and immediate charges

From the Payouts page you can also toggle manual order approval:

• On (the default) — checkout places a card hold and waits for you to approve before any money is captured.
• Off — orders are charged immediately at checkout, classic e-commerce style.

See Receiving & managing orders for how to approve, decline and fulfil.