Question 1

What is a Parish Larder community?

Accepted Answer

A white-labelled space on the platform for any group of people who already do things together — a parish, a village, a cricket club, a PTA, a church, a school, a farmers' market, a residents' association, an allotment syndicate. Each community gets its own URL (parishlarder.uk/c/your-slug), its own logo and accent colour, its own roster of admins and members, and its own copy of every module the platform offers.

Think of it as Parish Larder powering your group's space — like Substack powers newsletters or Discord powers servers — instead of you running yet another website, mailing list and chat thread.

Question 2

What kinds of groups can run one?

Accepted Answer

Fourteen kinds of community are recognised today, grouped into four:

• Parish & area — parish, village, town
  • Clubs, groups & associations — sports club, social club, club (other), PTA, charity, committee, syndicate, group
  • Institutions — church, school, farmers' market
  • Other

The kind you pick drives sensible defaults — a sports club starts with Town Crier, What's on, Stories and Members switched on; a parish starts with the lot. Everything is toggle-able from the community admin dashboard, so the kind is a starting point, not a cage.

Question 3

How do I start a community for my group?

Accepted Answer

Drop us a line via the contact page. We onboard each community manually during the pilot so we can help you pick the right modules, set sensible defaults, walk you through inviting your first members, and (if relevant) set up your stall / POS / memberships.

Turnaround is usually two working days. We'll come back with a draft community for you to look at before it goes live.

Question 4

What features come with a community?

Accepted Answer

Eleven modules, each toggle-able on or off per community:

• Town Crier — the noticeboard. Announcements, jobs, lost-and-found.
  • What's on — events, fixtures, markets, tastings, AGMs.
  • Stories — match reports, fundraiser write-ups, fête recaps, funny moments.
  • Walks — curated local routes (parishes / villages).
  • Classifieds — buy, sell, give within the group.
  • Stalls — producers, traders, the club shop, the bar till.
  • Time Bank — neighbours swap skills, no money changes hands.
  • Petitions — open campaigns for the community to back.
  • Recipes — seasonal cookery from members.
  • Parish council — the local-authority page (parishes / villages).
  • Members — public roster with role chips (admin, moderator, member).
  • Find a Handyman — paid local jobs board for members to hire registered tradespeople (handymen, gardeners, plumbers, dog walkers, etc) with escrowed payments + GPS-stamped visits. Enabled by default for parishes, villages and towns; toggle-able everywhere.

Plus: branded subheader with your logo + accent colour everywhere, invite-by-email flow with 14-day tokens, member directory, the Notifications channel matrix, and a "Ask for a feature" form that goes straight to our backlog.

Question 5

Can we have our own logo, colour and URL?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Every community gets:

• A unique URL — parishlarder.uk/c/your-slug — chosen at setup.
  • A logo (square upload, JPG/PNG/WebP/AVIF up to 8 MB) — shown in the community subheader, on cards, on emails to members, and as the fallback avatar in the roster.
  • An accent colour — a single hex you pick from a colour picker. Used on call-to-action buttons, the trim above the community subheader, status pills, accent strips on emails, and the icon backgrounds on member cards.
  • A tagline and a description.

All of it is editable from the community admin dashboard at /c/<slug>/admin. Changes apply instantly across the community's surfaces.

Question 6

Do we have to use all the modules?

Accepted Answer

No. Open the Modules section in the community admin dashboard and tick only what you want.

Real examples:

• Cricket club → Town Crier, What's on (fixtures), Stories (match reports), Members.
  • PTA → Town Crier, What's on (events + parents' evenings), Classifieds (uniform swap), Stories (fundraiser updates), Members.
  • Farmers' market → Town Crier, What's on (market days), Stalls (stallholders), Recipes (seasonal hooks), Stories, Members.
  • Parish — the lot.

Disabled modules vanish from the community's subheader, welcome tiles and discovery surfaces.

Question 7

Can we run our club shop, bar or kitchen on the platform?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Enable the Stalls module on your community, create a stall for your club, and you've got:

• Mobile POS — accept card payments at events, matches, bar nights, market days. Tap-to-pay-style flow on any phone or tablet with the Parish Larder mobile app. No card-reader hardware required (we support hardware terminals too if you'd rather have one).
  • Online shop — list merchandise (shirts, scarves, mugs, badges), homemade preserves, raffle tickets. Customers pay through Stripe; you see live takings on your stall dashboard.
  • Invoicing — generate one-off invoices to members, suppliers, sponsors. Email them straight from the stall dashboard; payment lands in your account same-day via Stripe Connect.
  • Catering / bar event tickets — issue QR-coded tickets for the annual dinner, the Halloween disco, the family fun day; scan at the door.

The same till handles all four — same Stripe account, same daily payout, same audit trail.

Question 8

Can we sell club memberships through Parish Larder?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Memberships are subscription products on your community stall — same plumbing the platform uses for seasonal subscription boxes. You choose:

• The price (annual, monthly, family rate, junior rate, life membership, etc.).
  • The billing cadence (annual is most common; monthly is supported).
  • The benefit text shown to the buyer ("Use the bar, vote at AGMs, 10% off the kit shop").

Members pay through Stripe — UK card or Apple/Google Pay — and renewals happen automatically. The membership shows up on their account; the community admin sees an up-to-date roster of paid-up members in the Stalls dashboard, with CSV export for the club secretary.

Question 9

How do members get updates from the community?

Accepted Answer

Five channels, each toggle-able by the community admin and opt-in by the member: • Email — Resend-powered. Works on day one with no setup. Templated email with the community's accent colour on the top trim, the kind of update (Town Crier / What's on / Stories etc.), the content excerpt, and a deep link. • Web push — browser notifications on Chrome, Safari, Firefox. Members register once from /c//notifications; the registration works across every Parish Larder community they belong to. • Mobile push — via the Parish Larder mobile app (iOS / Android). Members install the app + sign in, and pushes for every community they belong to land in one inbox. • SMS — Twilio. Used today by the Check-on-me wellbeing module; available for community notifications too. Costs about 4p per UK message. • WhatsApp — also Twilio, via Meta-approved message templates. Needs business setup (a verified Twilio WhatsApp sender + templates approved by Meta) before deliveries land. We can help you through this. Members pick which kinds of update they want on which channels from /c//notifications. Default is fully subscribed; "Mute everything" is one click.

Question 10

How do we invite people to join?

Accepted Answer

From your community admin dashboard, drop in an email, pick a role (member / moderator / admin), and hit Send invite. The invitee gets a branded email with a one-click link valid for 14 days. Clicking the link:

• If they're already signed in with the invited email → membership row is created instantly, they land on the community home.
  • If they're signed in with a different email → friendly mismatch banner; they sign in with the right one.
  • If they're signed out → sign-in page (with the invited email pre-filled). Sign-in creates an account if they don't have one yet, then drops them back at the accept page.

Pending invites show on your admin dashboard with revoke + status. The whole flow is membership-gated — they can't see private content until they accept.

Question 11

Who can see what we post?

Accepted Answer

Communities have three visibility levels:

• Public — anyone can browse the community's pages. Default for parishes, farmers' markets, churches.
  • Private — only members can see the content. Useful for clubs with a paid-member-only feel.
  • Invite-only — same as private, plus the community doesn't appear in the public directory at /communities. The only way in is a direct invite link.

Visibility is set when we onboard you; changes go through us during the pilot so we can warn members before flipping it. Posts within a community are scoped — they never leak to other communities or to the platform-wide feed.

Question 12

Can we use Petitions and Parish Council modules in a club?

Accepted Answer

Petitions — yes. Useful for "rescue the pavilion roof", "extend the bar licence to 1am", "lobby the council for the cricket pitch drainage". Members sign with one click; the progress bar fills toward your target.

Parish council module is parish-specific (it pages the parish-council page for a parish community), so clubs and PTAs typically turn it off. The Modules section in the admin dashboard lets you toggle it.

Question 13

What if we need a feature you don't have yet?

Accepted Answer

Use the "Ask for a feature" form at the bottom of your community admin dashboard. Pick a category (Module / Commerce / Communication / Integration / Other), give it a title and a description, optionally a use case.

What happens next:

• Our platform team triages every request from /admin/feature-requests.
  • The status walks through Submitted → Under review → Planned → In progress → Done / Declined.
  • You see the current status — and our reply — under your request on the admin dashboard.

Real examples from existing communities: team-sheet builder, fixture-list with home/away grouping, club merchandise shop, AGM minutes, member dues reminders.

Question 14

What does it cost?

Accepted Answer

Free during the pilot — currently first-come-first-served, capped at the number of communities we can support manually. After pilot the pricing tiers we're working towards are:

• Free — small groups (up to 50 members), all 10 modules, no commerce.
  • Standard — £20–30 / month, unlimited members, branding upload, all channels including SMS and WhatsApp.
  • Commerce — £50–80 / month, includes club shop + memberships + invoicing + POS. Stripe processing fees on transactions (typically 1.5% + 20p on UK cards) apply on top, same as the platform shop.

During the pilot you get everything at no cost so we can shape pricing around what communities actually use.

Question 15

Can Parish Larder replace TeamSnap, Pitchero, MailChimp, etc.?

Accepted Answer

For most clubs, yes. Parish Larder covers the core:

• Members + roster (replaces a spreadsheet, a shared doc, or a club CRM)
  • Fixtures (via What's on) — replaces TeamSnap / Pitchero / Spond for the basics
  • Match reports / fundraiser write-ups (via Stories) — replaces the club blog
  • Club shop + bar till (via Stalls + POS) — replaces Square or SumUp
  • Memberships (via Stalls subscriptions) — replaces Stripe-via-Wix or Membermouse
  • Notifications (via Email / SMS / WhatsApp / push) — replaces MailChimp
  • Petitions and community campaigns — replaces Change.org for local stuff

What's still on the roadmap: team-sheet builder with squad rotation, league-table integration, player stats, AGM voting. If your club needs these and would help shape them, file a request from the admin dashboard.

Question 16

How do I know my food is fresh?

Accepted Answer

Every product is prepared by the producer themselves and handed straight to a local rider — usually within an hour or two of the order being accepted. Bakers bake the morning of, dairy comes from the cellar that day, and butchers cut to order. Freshness is the whole point.

Because merchants accept each order before we capture payment, you'll never be charged for something that's already sold out or that won't make it to you in time.

Question 17

How does the basket work across multiple stalls?

Accepted Answer

Mix and match across stalls and we'll coordinate delivery automatically. Some baskets arrive in one drop (when stalls are close enough to share a rider), others as separate handovers — each merchant prepares their part, hands it off when ready, and you get a notification at every step.

You'll see the breakdown by stall on the basket page before you check out, including which merchants have accepted and which are still preparing.

Question 18

Do you deliver to my area?

Accepted Answer

Each merchant sets their own delivery radius, so coverage varies by stall. Pop your postcode into the search at the top of any page and we'll sort the merchants nearest you to the top.

In Phase 1 we cover most of England, Wales and lowland Scotland. The Highlands, Northern Ireland and offshore islands are on the roadmap — drop us a line if you'd like priority for your area.

Question 19

What if my order is missing or damaged?

Accepted Answer

Tell us within 24 hours via the order confirmation email and we'll arrange a replacement or refund. We work with the merchant directly so you don't have to chase anyone — most issues are resolved the same day.

For partial refunds (e.g. a single missing item from a larger order), we adjust the captured amount automatically; you don't need to send anything back.

Question 20

How do refunds work?

Accepted Answer

Refunds go back to your original card via Stripe and usually clear within 3–5 working days. You'll get an email confirmation as soon as the refund is authorised, and the same email links to the dispute resolution flow if anything goes sideways.

We never charge a re-stocking fee or admin charge — what you paid is exactly what comes back.

Question 21

How do delivery and collection work?

Accepted Answer

At checkout you can choose doorstep delivery (we send a local rider) or curbside collection (you pop down to the stall during their open hours).

Delivery slots are usually same-day or next-day depending on what time the merchant accepts your order. Collection slots are bound by the merchant's opening hours, which you can see on each stall page.

Question 22

Are the prices the same as the merchant’s own shop?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Merchants set their own prices — we don't markup, we don't apply blanket discounts, and we don't run dark patterns to push you toward more expensive options. The price you see on a stall is the price they'd charge you in person.

Question 23

Do you offer gift cards or hampers?

Accepted Answer

Gift cards are coming in our next release — drop your email on the contact page and we'll let you know when they go live. Hampers are stall-specific: any merchant can list a hamper as a product, and several already do for Christmas, Easter and birthdays.

Question 24

What are flash sales and how do I shop them?

Accepted Answer

A flash sale is end-of-day surplus a producer wants to move before it goes bad. Look for the amber banner with the live countdown at the top of a stall page. Each item shows the original price struck through and the flash price next to it — sometimes 30-50% off.

Shopping is the same as any normal product: add to basket, check out. The discount applies automatically — no code, no coupon. Watch the "Only N left" pill on each card: flash sales typically have limited stock and sell out quickly. When the countdown hits zero or stock runs out, the listing vanishes.

Question 25

How do group buys work?

Accepted Answer

A group buy is a preorder — the producer offers a price that only "unlocks" once enough customers have committed. For example: "5kg whole lamb box at £55 if 10 customers pledge by Friday".

You tap Pledge on the offer card with a quantity (e.g. 1 box). You're not charged yet — it's a commitment. The progress bar fills as other customers pledge. Three things can happen:

• Threshold hit by deadline → offer runs. The producer contacts you to convert your pledge into an actual paid order.
  • Cap hit early (the producer set a maximum) → offer auto-closes as a success.
  • Deadline passes without enough pledges → offer fails. Nobody is charged.

You can cancel your own pledge before the deadline if you change your mind.

Question 26

What's a seasonal subscription box?

Accepted Answer

A recurring delivery of a curated mix from one producer, on a rhythm you choose: weekly, fortnightly or monthly. The producer picks what's best in season each delivery, so you get variety without having to think about it.

Find them on the homepage Seasonal Boxes rail or the /boxes index — the list is filtered to producers who can reach your postcode. Subscribe from the stall page; pause or cancel any time from your account.

Question 27

How do I find offers near me?

Accepted Answer

Two places to look:

• Homepage rails — "Group buy offers" and "Seasonal boxes". Both are filtered to producers whose delivery radius reaches you. Add your postcode in the hero search (or save it to your profile) and the rails update with "near you" labels and the distance to each merchant.
  • Town Crier → 🏷️ Merchant offers — every live promotion across the platform in one tab: flash sales, group buys, coupon codes and subscription boxes. Sorted soonest-deadline first.

Distance to each merchant shows on every tile once you've supplied a postcode — either via the hero search, via Use my location, or by saving a postcode to your profile (one-time, then it's everywhere).

Question 28

What are Stories from the field?

Accepted Answer

Short vertical clips that producers post from their work — lambing, harvest, kitchen prep, market days, new batches coming out of the oven. Each clip is tagged with up to 8 products from the same stall, so you can shop straight from the video without leaving the player.

Where to find them:
  • Homepage scroller — the "Stories from the field" rail with the latest 8 clips. Tap a thumbnail to watch.
  • /stories — every live clip from every producer, sorted newest first.
  • Customer app → Shop tab → Stories tile — opens a full-screen vertical feed where you swipe up for the next clip (same paging as TikTok or Reels). The active clip autoplays + loops; tap anywhere on the video to toggle sound.

Producers also share clips to TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and Nextdoor — those links open the canonical /stories/[slug] page where the video plays with native browser controls and the tagged products show as a "Shop the story" grid alongside.

Question 29

What is Foodprint?

Accepted Answer

Foodprint is the impact dashboard that turns your local shopping into four headline numbers — money kept in the local economy, food miles avoided, kilograms of CO₂ saved, and the number of local producers you've supported. Every order you place on Parish Larder pushes those numbers up.

Where to find it:
  • /foodprint — public, no sign-in needed. Platform-wide totals broken down by country (England / Scotland / Wales / Northern Ireland), region (all 12 UK ITL1 regions) and community (top 10 postcode areas).
  • /account/foodprint — your personal foodprint once signed in, plus your parish's aggregate so you can see where your postcode area sits.

How the numbers are calculated:
  • Kept local — ~85p of every £1 you spend stays in the local economy (paid to the producer, not a supermarket HQ).
  • Food miles avoided — UK supermarket items travel ~1,100 miles farm-to-shelf on average; a typical Parish Larder order moves ~10 miles. We total the difference per order.
  • CO₂ saved — a deliberately conservative 0.25 kg CO₂e per £1 of local spend versus the supermarket equivalent.
  • Producers supported — the count of distinct stalls you've bought from.

The heuristics are calibrated to Pretty et al. 2005, Defra weighted food-miles work and Carbon Trust food-emissions tables, rounded down at every step. The full methodology is on the public /foodprint page and the source constants live in apps/web/lib/foodprint.ts. The User Guide at /help/shop/foodprint goes deeper.

Question 30

What is Find a Handyman?

Accepted Answer

A local jobs marketplace inside each community. Members post what needs doing — a leaking tap, a fortnightly dog walk, a hedge to tame — and registered tradespeople in the same community respond with quotes. The customer accepts a quote, pays into escrow, and funds release to the trade when the work is signed off.

The whole flow lives at /c/<your-community>/find-a-handyman on the web and as a community tile in the customer mobile app. Tradespeople run from the dedicated Handyman mode of the merchant app (Today / Jobs / Diary / Communities / Account).

Question 31

Which trades are covered?

Accepted Answer

Ten categories cover most local-services work today:

• Handyman
  • Gardener
  • Plumber
  • Electrician
  • Painter
  • Cleaner
  • Roofer
  • Carpenter
  • Dog walker
  • Other / not sure

The customer picks one when they post; the tradesperson's directory listing surfaces them for matching jobs. Want a category we don't list? Pick "Other" and describe the work — and tell us via the feature-request form so we add it.

Question 32

How do I post a job? (customer)

Accepted Answer

Open your community → "Find a handyman" tile (or /c/<slug>/find-a-handyman) → Post a job. You provide:

• Title and a free-text description of what needs doing.
  • Category and urgency (Within 24 hours / Within a week / Flexible).
  • Optional estimated hours and budget range — handy for one-off jobs, less relevant for recurring work.
  • Postcode + locality. Your full address stays private until you accept a tradesperson's response.

Registered tradespeople in that community get notified automatically. You browse responses, pick one, propose a visit time, and they come to look at the job.

Question 33

How does payment work?

Accepted Answer

After the on-site visit, the tradesperson submits a quote (labour + materials breakdown + optional notes + estimated completion). You see it on the job detail page.

Accept the quote → Stripe Checkout opens, you pay into escrow. The funds sit in Parish Larder's platform balance — the tradesperson doesn't see a penny until you sign off on the completed work.

On a £100 quote:
  • Customer charged: £100 + 10% surcharge = £110
  • Held in escrow: £110
  • On release, tradesperson receives: £100 − 10% platform fee = £90
  • Platform retains £20 (~18% of what the customer paid)

Reject the quote (with an optional reason) and the trade can submit a new one. The 10/10 split is the same regardless of cadence — one-off or recurring.

Question 34

How does visit scheduling work?

Accepted Answer

Once the escrow is paid the tradesperson proposes a visit schedule:

• Cadence — One-off, Weekly, or Fortnightly.
  • First visit date + time.
  • Visits in this block — 1 for one-off, N for recurring (e.g. 4 weekly dog walks).
  • Optional visit length.

You approve the schedule before any visit is booked. Once approved, each visit gets its own card with a scheduled time. The tradesperson presses Start when they arrive on site (GPS-stamped) and Finish when the work's done (also GPS-stamped) — so you've got a full audit trail of when they actually turned up and how long they were there.

Question 35

What if a visit needs to be moved?

Accepted Answer

Either party can propose a reschedule on any not-yet-started visit. Tap Reschedule on the visit card, pick a new date/time, optionally add a reason ("running late", "weather", "customer asked"). The visit goes into "reschedule proposed" status and the other side gets Accept new time / Decline buttons.

The original time stays put until both sides agree — that way nothing silently disappears from anyone's diary. Visits that are completed or already finished can't be rescheduled (they get a new quote / new engagement if there's a problem).

Question 36

How do recurring jobs (dog walking, gardening) work?

Accepted Answer

Same flow, just a longer block. You post the job once ("Twice-weekly dog walking for two dogs"); the trade quotes for a block (say 4 weeks × 2 walks = 8 visits at £15 each = £120 total + 10% surcharge); you pay once and approve a fortnightly schedule of 8 dates.

The trade presses Start/Finish on each visit. The full payout (minus 10% platform fee) releases when all visits are complete and you accept the engagement at the end. If you want a longer commitment, the trade can quote a bigger block (12 visits, 24 visits) — same plumbing.

When the block runs out, the trade raises a fresh quote against the same job posting for the next block.

Question 37

I'm a tradesperson — how do I get started?

Accepted Answer

Sign up as a merchant and finish onboarding (Stripe Connect is the only must — that's how we pay you). Then on your Account screen in the merchant mobile app, tap the new "Switch to Handyman" button on the Business mode card. Your tab bar flips to:

• Today — dashboard with upcoming visits + funds in escrow.
  • Jobs — inbox of available jobs across every community you're a member of, plus your active engagements.
  • Diary — your scheduled visits.
  • Communities — the communities you're a member of (you respond to jobs inside them).
  • Account.

Make sure you have a directory listing with the right category on each community you serve — that's what surfaces you for matching jobs. Want to swap back to selling products? Same button flips you to Stall mode.

Question 38

Can a stall also offer handyman services?

Accepted Answer

Mode is one-per-business, so a single merchant is either a Stall or a Handyman. If you genuinely run both — say a farm shop AND a gardening side gig — set up the second business as a separate merchant (one user can be linked to several) and switch between them via the merchant switcher on the Account screen.

Keeps the tab bar focused: every screen you see matches the hat you're currently wearing.

Question 39

What about comments + scope creep on the job?

Accepted Answer

Every engagement has a built-in comments thread that both sides can see. The tradesperson can flag a comment as:

• Needs more hours — the existing quote is light; can the customer cover the overrun?
  • Needs another job — there's a related problem that deserves its own quote.
  • General — anything else: a photo of progress, a question about access, a heads-up about parts.

These flags surface as little chips above the comment so nothing gets lost in a long thread. Either party can post; both see the full history on the job detail screen on web + mobile.

Question 40

How do I sign up?

Accepted Answer

Fill in the short form on /sell. We aim to reply within two working days. Once approved, you'll get access to a stall builder where you can add your story, products, opening hours, delivery zones and photos.

We verify each merchant manually — that's how we keep the platform tight and keep customers trusting that every stall is a real, small producer.

Question 41

What does it cost to sell?

Accepted Answer

No setup fee, no subscription on Standard. Commission scales with volume — the more you sell, the less we take:

• 1–29 accepted orders / month → 15%
  • 30–99 accepted orders / month → 12%
  • 100+ accepted orders / month → 10%

We recalculate your tier daily on a rolling 30-day window and update your rate automatically — you don't need to ask. Rejected and cancelled orders don't count towards the count, only orders you accepted and progressed.

Stripe processing fees apply on top (typically 1.5% + 20p for UK cards). Everything's itemised on your dashboard so you can see exactly what came out of each transaction. Special partner / wholesale rates can be agreed manually for large volumes.

Question 42

When do I get paid?

Accepted Answer

Payouts run via Stripe Connect. In most cases that's same-day or next-day once you've onboarded with Stripe and your bank account is verified.

You can switch to weekly or monthly payouts in your Stripe Express dashboard if that suits your bookkeeping better. The whole money flow — order → capture → transfer → payout — is visible from your merchant dashboard.

Question 43

Can I deliver myself or use my own courier?

Accepted Answer

Absolutely. Each stall sets its own delivery options: choose between Parish Larder riders, your own driver/van, or a national courier (for shelf-stable products like preserves or charcuterie that ship by post).

You can also offer pickup-only stalls for products that don't travel well, or mix delivery options per product.

Question 44

What about Premium membership?

Accepted Answer

Premium unlocks the features that turn a stall into a full small-shop operation:

• POS till — turn any tablet into a card-and-cash till for face-to-face sales at the farm shop, your stand at a market, or a pop-up. Inventory-aware, with QR / SKU scanner, parked baskets, session takings, and Stripe Terminal hooked in for chip-and-pin (or demo-mode for testing).
  • Inventory by batch + best-before — record each production run as a batch (qty, lot code, best-before). The till sells the earliest-expiring units first (FEFO). Batches coming up to expiry surface on your dashboard with a one-tap “Add to flash sale” button to clear stock at a discount.
  • Printable QR product labels — A4 label sheets with allergens, ingredients, best-before, lot code, headline price and a QR your POS scanner recognises (scan a label → adds that batch to the basket).
  • Ticketed experiences — capacity-locked Stripe Checkout, numbered tickets, QR codes, camera-based door scanning, refund handling.
  • Newsletter compose & send — direct mailshot to your followers.
  • Higher ranking on the larder, Premium badge on your card, eligibility for homepage editor's picks.

Premium is invitation-based — email hello@parishlarder.com to discuss. Standard stays free forever and includes everything you need to sell: products, variants, sales, multi-buy offers, coupons, diary entries, all four delivery options and merchant-employed or Parish Larder freelance drivers.

Full side-by-side comparison: /sell#membership.

Question 45

What about Platinum membership?

Accepted Answer

Platinum includes everything in Premium plus the wholesale (B2B) module:

• Customers can apply for a wholesale account against your stall — cafés, restaurants, schools, box-schemes.
  • Set a wholesale discount % on your stall — approved trade buyers see your trade prices automatically at checkout, paid by card the same way as retail (no invoices to chase).
  • Wholesale dashboard — see approved trade buyers and trade orders separately from retail.
  • Platinum stall badge — signals to commercial buyers you sell to trade.

Platinum is for stalls who want to add a B2B revenue line on top of retail without standing up a separate website or invoicing flow. Like Premium, Platinum is invitation-based — email hello@parishlarder.com to discuss.

Full side-by-side comparison: /sell#membership.

Question 46

Can I run a market stall till from this platform?

Accepted Answer

Yes — Premium merchants get the Parish Larder POS at /merchant/pos. It's designed for an iPad or Android tablet in landscape and runs alongside your online catalogue, so every face-to-face sale draws from the same stock.

• Card + cash tenders — card goes through Stripe Terminal on a real reader, or a demo-mode flow for testing without hardware.
  • Inventory-aware — sells the earliest-expiring batch first; stock decrements live across both the till and the website.
  • Tablet-camera QR scanner — recognises variant UUIDs, SKUs, and Parish Larder batch labels ("batch:<uuid>").
  • Category filter pills — drill the product grid by subcategory at a busy market.
  • Park sale — set a basket aside while the customer fetches their wallet, serve the next person, resume later.
  • Session takings — live £ + sale count in the header so you know how the day's going.
  • Receipts by email — optional; the receipt page is printer-friendly for thermal printers.
  • Daily commission reconciliation works the same as online — same volume-tiered rate (15% / 12% / 10%).

Question 47

What payment options does the POS support?

Accepted Answer

Three tenders are wired across both the web POS at /merchant/pos and the mobile-merchant app:

• Cash — record the sale, calculate change due, print or email the receipt. Goods leave the stall immediately; the sale lands as Completed.
  • Card — face-to-face contactless / chip-and-pin / Apple Pay / Google Pay. Available in the mobile app only: Tap to Pay on iPhone (XS+ on iOS 16.4+, no extra hardware) or a paired BBPOS WisePAD 3 Bluetooth reader on iPad. The web POS doesn't offer this because browsers can't drive a contactless reader (no PCI-compliant NFC API on the web).
  • Send invoice — emails the customer a secure Stripe payment link. They pay later by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay; the order sits in “Awaiting customer payment” until Stripe confirms. You also get the link back on screen with a Copy / Share via… button so you can resend through WhatsApp / SMS / Messenger if the customer would rather get it that way. Available on both web and mobile.

For in-person card payments, open the Parish Larder Merchant app on your iPhone (Tap to Pay) or your iPad with a paired BBPOS WisePAD 3 reader. You can buy a WisePAD 3 through the platform from /merchant/dashboard/card-reader.

Question 48

Can I take card payments without a reader?

Accepted Answer

Yes — install the Parish Larder Merchant iPhone app and use Tap to Pay on iPhone. Hold the customer's contactless card, Apple Pay watch or Google Pay phone to the back of yours and the sale goes through. No external reader, no extra subscription.

Requirements:
  • iPhone XS or later running iOS 16.4+ (Tap to Pay is iPhone-only — it does not work on iPad. Apple restricts the entitlement to iPhone hardware.)
  • Apple's Tap to Pay on iPhone entitlement on your bundle id — apply once at https://developer.apple.com/contact/request/tap-to-pay-on-iphone/. Apple grants it after a short business review.
  • Stripe Terminal + the tap_to_pay capability enabled on your Connect account.
  • The native iPhone build of the merchant app (you can't run Tap to Pay in a browser — Safari has no API to access the phone's NFC secure element).

The in-app flow:
  1. Build the basket on your phone exactly like the tablet POS.
  2. Tap “Take card”. The app asks for location permission (Apple requires it to confirm the legal location of an in-person card sale), then briefly pairs with the iPhone's built-in reader.
  3. Hold the customer's card to the back of the phone. The same Apple sheet that handles Apple Pay shows the amount, confirms, and either approves or declines.
  4. Receipt by email + the same Print Receipt page the tablet POS uses.

If you want to run the till on an iPad, see the BBPOS WisePAD 3 FAQ below.

Question 49

I want to run the POS on an iPad — how do I take card payments?

Accepted Answer

Apple doesn't allow Tap to Pay on iPad (the entitlement is iPhone-only), so the iPad path uses a small Bluetooth card reader — the BBPOS WisePAD 3. £59 one-off, lives next to the till, pairs over Bluetooth.

The Parish Larder Merchant app detects iPad automatically and shows the WisePAD 3 panel instead of Tap to Pay. The pairing flow:
  1. Hold the WisePAD 3's button for ~3 seconds until the Bluetooth icon flashes blue.
  2. On the iPad POS screen, tap “Pair a reader”. The app scans for nearby readers; the WisePAD appears within ~10 seconds.
  3. Tap it to pair. First connection may take 1–3 minutes if Stripe pushes a firmware update.
  4. The serial number is saved on the iPad, so every subsequent app launch silently re-connects to the same reader.

Taking a sale: build the basket, tap “Take card”, the prompt flashes on the WisePAD. Customer taps card on the reader; the iPad shows the confirmation when the sale clears. Same Stripe Connect destination, same commission, same receipt page as Tap to Pay and online sales.

Which one for which device:
  • iPhone XS+ on iOS 16.4+ → Tap to Pay on iPhone (no extra hardware).
  • iPad (any iOS 16+) → BBPOS WisePAD 3 over Bluetooth.
  • Android tablet with NFC → Bluetooth path via the WisePAD 3 also; Android Tap to Pay is in Stripe's roadmap but not yet GA for our app.
  • Web tablet POS (/merchant/pos) → no contactless. The web tablet POS is for inventory + receipts; card payments use one of the mobile apps above.

Where to buy the WisePAD 3: order directly through your merchant dashboard at /merchant/dashboard/card-reader — Premium merchants can pay one-off with UK delivery included, and we'll ship within 2 working days. The reader registers to your Stripe account automatically the first time it connects to the app.

Question 50

How do inventory batches and best-before tracking work?

Accepted Answer

Each product can be split into batches — one batch is one production run or one delivery (a tray of sourdough out of the oven this morning; 30 jars of jam received yesterday; a wheel of cheese cut into 12 wedges last Tuesday). For every batch you record:

• Quantity of units in the batch
  • Best-before date (optional)
  • Lot code (optional)
  • Free-text notes (e.g. "Tuesday morning bake")

Manage batches per variant from the product edit page. Once a variant has at least one batch, the till's “remaining stock” becomes the sum of unsold units across active batches, and POS sales decrement the earliest-expiring batch first (FEFO).

Batches coming up to their best-before date in the next 5 days surface on your dashboard with a one-tap “Add to flash sale” button — pick a discount (10–70%) and the variant joins your live flash sale (we'll spin up a new one ending tonight if you don't have one running). Past-date active batches auto-flip to “expired” every morning at 04:14 UTC so they don't get sold by accident.

Question 51

How do I print product labels with QR codes?

Accepted Answer

From the product edit page, scroll to “Batches & best-before dates”, find the batch you want labels for, and click “Labels”. You'll land on a print-targeted A4 sheet of 64mm × 36mm labels (Avery L7159 / 8160 footprint) — adjust the count (defaults to one label per remaining unit, capped at 60 per sheet) and hit Print.

Each label has your trading name, the product + variant name, ingredient / allergen warnings (Contains: …, May contain: …), health warnings if any, the headline price (with a strikethrough on the original when on sale), best-before date, lot code, and a QR code your POS scanner recognises. When the cashier scans a label, the right variant lands in the basket and the till knows which batch it came from.

Question 52

How do I edit my stall?

Accepted Answer

Everything is editable from your merchant dashboard — your story, opening hours, accept window, products, photos, delivery options, contact details. Changes go live instantly.

We also save every revision so you can roll back if you change your mind.

Question 53

How does the order accept window work?

Accepted Answer

When a customer places an order, we hold the payment but don't capture it until you accept. You've got a configurable window (default 60 minutes; adjust per stall) to either accept the order, reject specific items, or reject the whole thing.

If you don't respond within the window, the order auto-cancels and the customer's card is released — no negative review, no penalty. Most merchants set this to match how often they check the dashboard during open hours.

Question 54

What support do you offer?

Accepted Answer

Email and phone support during UK business hours (Mon–Fri 09:00–17:30), plus a small but growing knowledge base. We aim to reply to merchant queries within four working hours.

For urgent issues during peak trading (e.g. a delivery problem), there's an out-of-hours escalation path in your dashboard. Use it sparingly — we keep it for genuine emergencies.

Question 55

Can I run promotions or discount codes?

Accepted Answer

Yes — four flavours, all live and surfaced automatically on your stall page, the homepage rails (location-scoped) and the Town Crier's Merchant Offers tab:

• Coupon codes — percent-off or pounds-off, with optional minimum spend, total redemption cap, per-customer cap and a window. Customers type the code on the basket page.
  • Flash sales — end-of-day surplus, one live sale per stall at a time. Add any of your variants with a discount %; we mirror it into the variant's sale price + sale-end-time so basket / checkout / POS pick it up automatically. The flash card has a live countdown on your stall page.
  • Group buys (threshold preorders) — "£55 if 10 pledges by Friday". Customers pledge a quantity; when the threshold hits, the offer runs.
  • Seasonal subscription boxes — weekly / fortnightly / monthly recurring delivery.

All four are managed from the Catalogue section of your merchant dashboard. Each surface auto-removes the offer as soon as it expires, sells out or you flip the status — no manual cleanup.

Question 56

How do Stories from the field work?

Accepted Answer

Stories are short vertical clips (up to 60s) that you post from the merchant mobile app — Home → Stories from the field → Post a new story. Pick a clip from your camera roll (or shoot one straight from the picker), tag up to 8 products from your catalogue, write a short caption, set the kind (Lambing / Harvest / Kitchen / Event / Product / Day in the life) and optional CTA chip, then publish.

The clip uploads to Vercel Blob in seconds. Customers see it in three places: the homepage scroller (latest 8), the public /stories index (all live clips), and the customer app's full-screen vertical Stories feed. Each clip also has a canonical URL — parishlarder.com/stories/[your-slug] — that you can share to socials.

Question 57

How do I share my Stories to TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and Nextdoor?

Accepted Answer

From the merchant mobile app's Stories index, tap Share on any row to open the system Share sheet — pick whichever app you want to post to. The URL is UTM-stamped automatically (utm_source=share, utm_campaign=story_<slug>) so inbound traffic carries attribution.

On the web canonical page (/stories/[slug]) there are platform-specific buttons too:
  • Copy for TikTok / Copy for Instagram / Copy for Nextdoor — copies the link + caption to your clipboard, ready to paste into the app. (Those platforms don't expose a public share intent URL.)
  • Share to Facebook — opens Facebook's public sharer.php with the URL prefilled.
  • More options — uses the native Web Share API where supported (mobile browsers) and falls back to clipboard copy otherwise.

Auto-publishing direct to TikTok / Meta isn't built — those APIs need platform-specific app review and break often. The share-sheet path is reliable and lets you control caption + hashtags per platform.

Question 58

Can I add ingredients, allergens, health warnings and batches when I add a product?

Accepted Answer

Yes — both on the web (Dashboard → Products → New) and in the merchant mobile app (Products tab → Add new product). The mobile flow has a collapsible "Labelling & batch" section that opens up the same fields as the web:
  • Ingredients — plain English, in order of weight (highest first).
  • The 15 EU allergens — single-tap chips that cycle clear → contains → may-contain → clear.
  • Free-text health warnings — one per line, max 10. E.g. "Contains alcohol — not suitable for under 18s" or "Choking hazard for under 3s".
  • Alcohol flag — triggers age-gate checks at checkout.
  • An optional initial production batch — quantity, best-before date (YYYY-MM-DD) and lot code. The till sells the earliest-expiring batch first (FEFO) and expiring batches surface on your dashboard for one-tap flash sales.

The backend writes the same database rows as the web, so the resulting product is fully featured — printable QR labels, allergen warnings at checkout, batch tracking — even though it was created in 30 seconds on your phone at the farm gate.

Question 59

What's new in the POS flow?

Accepted Answer

Three improvements landed recently:
  • Browse-then-checkout — the catalogue + categories + search stay in view while you build the basket; payment options moved to a dedicated Checkout screen with the full order breakdown at the top. You're no longer pushed past the catalogue the moment the first item lands.
  • Park / Resume baskets — mid-sale interruption? Tap Park to set the basket aside (up to 8 stored). A "Parked · N" pill appears in the search row; tap to pull the basket back. Mirrors the web POS parking pattern.
  • Search bar + uniform category pills — type to filter the catalogue by product name; each category pill has a uniform 120px minimum width and a live product-count chip, with the selected pill flipping to solid amber.

All three are live in the latest merchant iOS build and on the web POS at /merchant/pos.

Question 60

Can I add pictures to my newsletter?

Accepted Answer

Yes — under the Message textarea on both the merchant newsletter composer (Dashboard → Newsletters → New) and the master-admin newsletter composer, there's an "Add a picture" / "Take a photo" panel. Each upload appends a responsive, inline-styled snippet to the body (email clients strip

Question 61

Can I sell event tickets face-to-face from the POS?

Accepted Answer

Yes — Premium merchants can sell tickets at the door from the merchant mobile app. Open the Scan tab → tap the event you're running → use the "Sell tickets" panel: quantity stepper, optional customer email + name, and three tender options:
  • Card — Tap to Pay on iPhone or BBPOS WisePAD 3 on iPad. Same Stripe Terminal flow as a regular POS sale. Tickets issue automatically when the sale clears.
  • Cash — record the sale, no Stripe involvement. Useful when the customer hands over notes at the door.
  • Email link — emails the customer a Stripe payment link; tickets pre-allocated as "awaiting payment" and convert to live when Stripe confirms.

Each ticket is QR-coded and emailed instantly. The event detail screen shows live rollup stats (issued / redeemed / refunded / gross) plus the last 30 attendees. The same Scan-tab → event flow lets you announce the event to followers and issue free comp tickets.

Question 62

How do flash sales work for end-of-day surplus?

Accepted Answer

Open Dashboard → Catalogue → Flash sales. Pick the variants you don't want to throw out, set a discount % per variant, set a closing time (defaults to today 18:00), and start the sale. You can only have one live sale per stall at a time.

The sale appears as a prominent amber banner on your public stall page with a live countdown. Each variant's flash discount is mirrored into its sale_price_pence, so the discount flows through your existing checkout, POS and order snapshots automatically — no separate basket.

End it manually with End sale now (or Cancel to abort). We snapshot the previous sale fields on every variant before we overlay the flash price, so any pre-existing unrelated sale survives the flash window.

Question 63

How do group buys (threshold preorders) work?

Accepted Answer

A group buy is a price that only "unlocks" once enough customers have pledged. Open Dashboard → Catalogue → Group buys, fill in the title, package size, unit price, threshold (minimum pledges), optional cap (auto-close when hit) and a closing time. Add a photo from your phone if you have one.

Customers see it on your stall page, on the Town Crier's Merchant Offers tab, and on the customer mobile app. They pledge a quantity. Progress bar updates live. When the threshold hits, the offer flips to an "Unlocked" state and keeps accepting up to the cap.

Lifecycle: live → met → closed_full (cap hit) or closed_success / closed_failed (deadline passes). Pledges aren't charged on the spot — they're commitments. When you close as success you then convert each pledge into a real order to take payment (manual for now; auto-checkout conversion is on the roadmap).

Question 64

What is the Foodprint dashboard on my stall?

Accepted Answer

Foodprint surfaces the local-economy and environmental impact attributable to every revenue order your stall has shipped. Open Dashboard → Outreach → Foodprint (direct link /merchant/dashboard/foodprint) and you'll see:

• Four headline tiles — kept local £, food miles avoided, kg CO₂ saved, producers supported (your stall counted as 1, alongside the totals).
  • Customers supporting you — distinct buyer count plus total order count.
  • Customers by region — where your buyers live, broken down by ITL1 region. Useful for planning market days, pop-ups or extra delivery routes.
  • Top three regulars — first name + postcode area only, ranked by spend. Minimal PII; the goal is to spot loyal customers without exposing their full details.
  • A paste-ready one-liner you can drop into newsletters, Instagram, or the chalkboard at the stall: "Thanks to our N regulars on Parish Larder, we've kept £X of food spending local and saved roughly K kg of CO₂..." Updates every time the page loads.

The maths is the same conservative calibration used on the customer dashboard and the public /foodprint page — Pretty et al., Defra and Carbon Trust food-emissions data, rounded down at every step. Your stall's numbers roll up into the platform totals on /foodprint, so growing your reach grows the platform impact total too.

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