Fifty registrations a day, one person checking
Your marketplace is trade-only, because suppliers want trade pricing kept away from the public and some products are only sold to businesses. So every buyer registration is checked. Your operations assistant looks up each company, checks the website, wonders whether a sole trader with a Gmail address is really a plumber, and approves or rejects. Registrations queue for days, and some genuine tradespeople give up before they are approved.
Occasionally a consumer slips through, buys at trade prices and then asks for consumer-style returns.
Why verification is hard to do consistently
Trade buyers come in many forms: limited companies, partnerships, sole traders, charities, schools, public bodies. Some have company registrations, some have VAT numbers, some have neither. Many small tradespeople use personal email addresses. There is no single check that proves someone is trade.
Your verification policy decides what you accept, and it may differ by category, since some products may be restricted to certain buyer types. The process problem is applying that policy quickly and consistently.
| Signal | What it shows | Limitation |
|---|---|---|
| Companies House record | Registered, active company | Sole traders are not listed |
| VAT number check | VAT-registered business | Many small traders are not registered |
| Business email domain | Business has its own domain | Many tradespeople use personal email |
| Trade body membership | Recognised trade | Not all trades have one |
| Trading address and website | Visible business | Easy to fake |
What slow or loose verification costs
Slow verification loses genuine buyers at the moment they wanted to order. Loose verification lets consumers in, which upsets suppliers who joined on the promise of a trade-only channel and can bring consumer rights expectations into what should be trade transactions. Inconsistent verification, where the same kind of buyer is approved one day and rejected the next, looks unprofessional.
Where products are restricted, the stakes are higher, and your policy and your advisers set what must be checked.
Fake or careless registrations also take up space in your data. Duplicate accounts for the same business, accounts with invented company names and abandoned half-registrations make buyer reporting unreliable and marketing lists messy.
The verification flow we build
- Registration form: buyers provide company name, company or charity number where they have one, VAT number where registered, trade type, business address and website, with the form adapting to the business type they select.
- Automatic checks: company details are checked with Companies House, VAT numbers with HMRC's VAT number check, email domains against the company website, and addresses for basic validity.
- Sole trader route: where no registration exists, buyers can provide evidence your policy accepts, such as a trade body membership, trade insurance certificate or recent supplier invoice, which is read and checked.
- Rules and scoring: your policy is written as rules that approve clear cases, reject clear non-trade cases, and refer the rest, with the reasons recorded.
- Review queue: referred registrations reach your team with all the check results in one view, so decisions take a minute rather than a search.
- Category restrictions: where some categories need extra checks, buyers are verified for those separately, and restricted products stay hidden until they are.
Registration after the flow is live
Most genuine trade buyers are verified quickly and can order straight away. Your team handles the unclear cases with the evidence in front of them. Suppliers can be told how buyers are verified, which supports the trade-only promise. Decisions are recorded, so if a buyer asks why they were rejected, the answer is clear.
Is buyer verification slowing you down?
- Buyer registrations are checked by hand, one by one.
- Genuine buyers wait days to be approved.
- Consumers have registered and bought at trade prices.
- Sole traders are approved or rejected inconsistently.
- Suppliers ask how you know buyers are trade.