Use cases
Identity for marketplaces: buyers, sellers and the platform
How marketplace identity differs: one person in several roles, seller organizations with staff, platform administrators, and API access for sellers.
The short answer
A marketplace usually has three kinds of identity: individual buyers, seller organizations with their own staff, and platform operators. The same person may be a buyer and a seller. The design that holds up treats sellers as tenants with memberships and roles, keeps buyer accounts personal, and gives sellers API credentials for their own integrations rather than shared logins.
Sources last reviewed .
Modelling
- Buyer: a personal account, no tenant needed.
- Seller: an organization (tenant) with staff memberships and roles — owner, manager, support.
- Platform staff: separate, with stronger authentication and audited access to seller data.
- A person can hold a buyer account and seller memberships under one identity, switching context explicitly.
Risks specific to marketplaces
- Account takeover of sellers to redirect payouts — protect payout changes with step-up authentication.
- Staff who leave a seller organization keeping access — membership removal must end sessions.
- Seller integrations using a staff member's password — issue machine credentials instead.
- Platform support tools that can see every seller's data — audit and restrict them.
Keep reading
Multi-tenant architecture
Organization switching: letting one user belong to many tenants
Security
Step-up authentication: asking for more proof only when it matters
Protocols and how-tos
Service-to-service authentication with the client credentials grant
Glossary: Multi-tenancy · Machine identity · Session revocation
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