VendorIQ — User Guide

A practical guide to building and running a multi-vendor marketplace on your Shopify store — from vendor onboarding and payouts to local shopping and delivery.

This guide covers the main jobs for both the merchant running the marketplace and the vendors selling inside it. It explains what each feature does, when to use it, and where to start. Your available options depend on your edition, plan, store setup, and feature availability shown inside VendorIQ.

VendorIQ is live on the Shopify App Store → apps.shopify.com/kernvel-vendoriq-1.

Table of Contents

1. What VendorIQ Does
2. Getting Started
3. Vendor Onboarding & Management
4. Product Management & Moderation
5. Orders, Routing & Splitting
6. Commissions & the Rule Builder
7. Payouts & Disbursement
8. Returns & Disputes
9. Your Storefront & Marketplace
10. Local Delivery & Pickup
11. Food & Grocery Marketplaces
12. Money, Product & Support Controls
13. A Branded Shopper App
14. Invoicing
15. Email Marketing & Coupons
16. Analytics & Cross-Shop Benchmarks
17. Settings & the Catalog-Import Wizard
18. The Vendor Portal
19. The AI Features
20. Pricing & Plans
21. Troubleshooting & FAQ
22. Getting Help
23. Glossary

What VendorIQ Does

VendorIQ turns a Shopify store into a multi-vendor marketplace without moving it to a separate platform. Vendors sign up through their portal, submit products, and fulfill their share of orders. VendorIQ splits multi-vendor orders, calculates commission, and records what each vendor is owed. You choose the payout method and confirm the steps required for your store.

Think of it as three jobs in one install: build the marketplace → run it → settle it.

• Build it. Recruit and vet vendors, give each one a branded self-service portal, publish a public vendor directory on your storefront, and moderate the products, reviews, and questions that flow in.
• Run it. When Shopify sends an order with assigned vendor products, VendorIQ records each seller's share. Vendors can fulfill their own items with tracking, handle their own returns, answer reviews and questions, and run their own coupons — all inside guardrails you control.
• Settle it. Review eligible earnings, statements, and invoices, then use an available provider payout workflow or send a manual transfer from your account. VendorIQ never holds your funds.

Plan-eligible AI assistance can help with vendor risk, order fraud, listing quality, disputes, and customer questions. Vendor approval and provider payouts remain under the controls shown for your store.

The order ties it together: one Shopify checkout → assigned vendor items become seller orders → commission and eligible earnings are recorded → you review and complete payouts through the workflow available to your store. One install brings the records and controls together.

Marketplace is the headline; payouts complete the record. VendorIQ once shipped as a payouts-only settlement tool. It now covers the broader marketplace lifecycle; payout options depend on the plan, connected provider, and active workflow.

Who is VendorIQ for?

• Existing Shopify merchants ready to add sellers — from a handful of makers to hundreds of suppliers — who want a marketplace without leaving Shopify or rebuilding their storefront.
• Marketplace operators boxed in by single-merchant tooling who don't want the cost and lock-in of a standalone marketplace platform.
• Brands launching collaborative or curated collections — artisan and maker co-ops, regional farmer or craft co-ops, designer collectives, dropship and wholesale aggregators.
• Any scale — from an SMB adding a few vendors to a high-volume operator running hundreds of sellers.

Why VendorIQ over the alternatives

• A real AI layer across vetting, fraud, listing quality, disputes, and chat — not just order-splitting math.
• Full marketplace and payouts in one install — competitors gate payouts, storefront widgets, or analytics behind paid add-ons.
• A modern standalone vendor portal that each seller logs into, branded to your marketplace.
• A choice of payout rails — Stripe, PayPal, and manual — instead of a single locked-in method.
• Deep Shopify-native sync — vendor edits, inventory, and "mark shipped" flow back to real Shopify fulfillment.
• Transparent flat pricing and a documented migration path off other multivendor apps.

Getting Started

1. Install the App

Install VendorIQ from the Shopify App Store. The app is free to start — the Free plan is $0 forever, and paid plans come with a 14-day free trial. Once installed, you land in the VendorIQ dashboard inside your Shopify admin.

2. Connect Your Store

On install, VendorIQ connects to your Shopify store and starts watching orders and products. No theme edits, no code — it reads your catalog so it can detect vendors, split orders, and apply commissions, and it can publish your public vendor pages with a single click when you're ready.

3. The Setup Guide

The first time you open VendorIQ, a Setup guide lays out a first-run checklist and auto-detects most steps as you complete them. The fastest path from install to a running marketplace is:

1. Import or invite your vendors — run the catalog-import wizard to turn an existing single-seller catalog into vendor-owned listings, or send invitations so new sellers apply and onboard themselves.
2. Set your commission rules — one global rate, plus any overrides, in the rule builder.
3. Choose how and when you pay — enable your payout methods and pick a schedule.
4. Publish your storefront — create the public vendor directory and shared profile page, then verify both open on your store.
5. Set up local shopping if you offer it — assign each seller's Shopify Location, confirm pickup or eligible live delivery rates, and check the local-commerce readiness list before inviting shoppers to check out.

Once those are in place, VendorIQ can route orders containing assigned vendor products. Everything below covers each area in depth.

Vendor Onboarding & Management

Everything about your sellers — recruiting them, vetting them, approving them, paying them, and talking to them — runs from your embedded Shopify admin. You never leave Shopify.

The vendor directory

The vendor directory is your one searchable, sortable roster of every seller. At a glance each vendor shows their status, product and order counts, lifetime revenue, any recorded AI risk score, and join date. You can filter the list, bulk-approve or suspend in one action, and invite or create vendors from here. It's the home base for managing your seller base as it grows from a handful to hundreds.

The vendor profile

Click any vendor to open their full dossier:

• Contact and business details — including tax ID.
• Performance metrics — fulfillment rate, return rate, average order value, and response time.
• An AI risk assessment — a trust read with plain-English factors, so you know why a vendor is rated the way they are.
• Tabs for their products, orders, and payouts — everything about that vendor in one place.

From the profile you can approve, suspend, reactivate, or reject a vendor in one click.

Pending applications

New sellers land in a pending applications review queue, each with an AI risk score to speed your decision. Approve or reject per row or in bulk — and when you reject, the reason you write is shown to the vendor so they know why.

Vendor invitations

Bring sellers in the way that suits you:

• Email invitations — one at a time, or a bulk CSV invite for a whole list.
• A public sign-up link and printable QR code — hand it out, print it, or drop it into a recruitment card on your storefront.
• Live conversion stats — see how many invites turned into active vendors, and resend or revoke any invite.
• A configurable "become a vendor" landing page — write your own hero copy and benefits, choose whether new sellers are auto-approved or held for review, and toggle a storefront recruitment card.

Payout onboarding (per vendor)

Before a vendor can be paid, set up how they'll receive money:

• Choose the method — card processor, PayPal, or a manual bank transfer.
• Generate a hosted, self-serve onboarding link the vendor completes themselves.
• Check live payout-readiness — VendorIQ shows whether charges and payouts are enabled and whether tax forms are on file, so you know a vendor is ready before you try to pay them.

Vendor messaging

A built-in shared inbox plus per-vendor chat threads keep every conversation in one place. Use saved-reply templates for the things you send often, and deep-link straight into a thread from a vendor's profile or an order.

Team

The Team view shows which of your Shopify staff have used the VendorIQ admin, so you always know who on your side is managing the marketplace.

Product Management & Moderation

Every product a vendor lists flows into a moderation pipeline you control, so your catalog stays consistent and on-brand no matter how many sellers you add.

The product catalog

The product catalog is every vendor listing in one view — thumbnail, vendor, status, category, price range, and a quality score when one has been run. Approve or reject inline, filter by whatever you need, and bulk-approve or reject at scale when a big batch comes in.

Product detail

Open any listing to see the full picture — images, description, inventory and low-stock threshold, variants, shipping and customs info, SEO, tags, collections, and custom attributes. Alongside it you get:

• A quality score with concrete improvement suggestions when scoring has been run and is available on your plan.
• Suggested categories and tags when those tools are enabled.
• A timeline of the listing's history.

Approve, reject, or archive from here.

Pending products

A focused pending products approval queue holds everything awaiting your review, filterable by vendor or category, so moderation is a quick, deliberate pass rather than a hunt.

Create a product on a vendor's behalf

Need to list something for a seller yourself? A quick create-on-behalf form does it, and the vendor sees a clear "Created by merchant" badge so there's no confusion about who added it.

Reviews & Q&A moderation

Two queues keep your storefront trustworthy:

• Reviews — each carries an AI quality and spam score plus a sentiment read. Bulk approve, reject, flag, hide, or publish.
• Customer questions — the Q&A inbox, where you can answer on a vendor's behalf or route it to them.

Orders, Routing & Splitting

Order splitting is the engine that makes a marketplace work. VendorIQ records seller shares when it receives eligible Shopify orders.

The orders list

The orders list shows the vendor order shares VendorIQ has recorded for assigned products. If you're bringing in historical orders, "Sync from Shopify" can backfill eligible orders.

Order detail

Open any order to see a per-vendor section: each vendor's line items, their subtotal, the commission taken, and the payout owed. From here you can mark a vendor's portion fulfilled with tracking and carrier, and approve or reject a vendor's cancellation request.

Choose vendor order details

Open Settings → Vendor portal → Configure order details. Enable each detail independently: customer name, city/region, email and phone; delivery recipient, address and phone; billing recipient, address and phone; order note; and order tags. Changes apply to existing and future vendor orders and customer fields in order downloads. Each vendor sees only their own order shares. Missing or redacted Shopify details stay unavailable.

Review shipment evidence

A Reconciliation required warning means VendorIQ cannot safely establish the vendor’s shipped quantities from the recorded Shopify evidence. Causes include older unverified shipment history, incomplete or conflicting updates, changed order quantities, and an item shared by multiple vendor splits.

The vendor should contact the marketplace admin and avoid shipping the same items again. The admin opens Orders → the order → Review shipment evidence and clicks Read current Shopify shipments. For each shared item in a shipment, enter the whole-number quantities shipped by each listed vendor; these must cover the shipment’s full quantity exactly and fit each vendor’s order requirements. Click Read current Shopify shipments again to get a fresh preview with those assignments, review every vendor split, enter a reason of 10–500 characters, tick the review acknowledgement, and click Confirm shipment evidence. VendorIQ retains the confirmed assignments. If Shopify changes before confirmation, read it again; if the shipment quantities change later, the affected splits require reconciliation and another allocation review. This records evidence for existing shipments; it does not create a second shipment. Contact Kernvel support if shipment review is not enabled for the store.

Choose vendor portal pages

Open Settings → Vendor portal → Configure navigation pages. Every page is enabled by default. Each toggle controls that page for all vendors in the marketplace; disabled pages disappear from the sidebar and direct links display a disabled-page message. Changes refresh within 30 seconds. Plan and store feature requirements still apply to enabled pages. Sign out remains available if every page is disabled.

Automatic order splitting & fulfillment

When a Shopify order arrives (or is updated, cancelled, refunded, or fulfilled), VendorIQ automatically:

1. Groups items by vendor using your product-to-vendor assignments.
2. Calculates each vendor's commission and net payout.
3. Splits shipping fairly across the vendors on the order.
4. Tracks each vendor's fulfillment. When a vendor marks items shipped, VendorIQ asks Shopify to create the matching fulfillment; customer notification depends on the shipment's notification setting and Shopify confirmation.

A single order with products from three vendors becomes three vendor splits, each with its own commission and payout — no spreadsheet, no manual math.

Order routing rules

Sometimes you need to override which vendor fulfills what. Order routing rules let you assign line items to a specific vendor by SKU prefix, tag, or product type — useful for shared catalogs, dropship arrangements, or when several vendors can supply the same item.

Commissions & the Rule Builder

A commission rule decides how much you keep from an eligible vendor sale (and therefore how much the vendor is paid). VendorIQ chooses one matching rule for each calculation; if none matches, it records why the rule-based commission is zero.

The commission dashboard

The commission management screen opens with headline cards — total earned, this month, average rate, and top category — sitting above your full rule table, so you see both the outcome and the rules producing it.

The rule builder

Each rule combines a scope, a rate type, optional conditions, a priority, and optional effective dates.

Scope — how far a rule reaches:

• Global — a store-wide rule considered for eligible vendor sales; a matching rule with higher priority can take precedence.
• Category — a Shopify product type (for example, all "Footwear").
• Vendor — one specific vendor.
• Product — one specific product.
• Order-size tier — a value-based ladder (for example, 15% up to $1,000, 12% from $1,000–$5,000, 10% above).

Rate type — how the cut is calculated:

• Percentage — a percentage of the sale.
• Fixed per order — a flat fee on the whole order.
• Fixed per item — a flat fee for each item sold.
• Margin — a percentage of the profit (sale price minus cost), for when you pay on margin rather than revenue.

Conditions — extra requirements a rule must meet, such as "only orders over $100" or "only products with a given tag." A rule with no conditions simply always applies within its scope.

Priority & effective dates — you order rules by priority (higher wins), and each rule can carry an effective-from and effective-until date so a promotional rate ("10% for December") switches itself on and off automatically. When more than one rule could apply to an order, VendorIQ resolves it deterministically — by priority, then by the most specific scope — so you always know which rate you'll get.

Payouts & Disbursement

Getting vendors paid is the settlement pillar of the marketplace, with provider and manual methods under your control. Money moves from your own account to your vendors. VendorIQ calculates what is owed and records the payout workflow; it never holds or pools your funds.

The vendor payouts screen

The vendor payouts screen opens with cards — pending, paid this month, and lifetime — over a full table that tracks every vendor's money through a clear timeline: earned → held → scheduled → paid. From here you can:

• Dispatch eligible provider payouts after the store's provider connection and each vendor's receiving account are ready. A payout that cannot be sent stays unpaid with a reason to review.
• Mark a manual payout paid with a reference number.
• Run an on-demand payout sweep to generate everything that's due right now.
• See "accruing earnings" — what each vendor has earned so far, even between runs.

Every payout carries a full audit trail.

Payout methods

Choose which rails your vendors may use:

• Card processor (Stripe) — a provider option only after your store connects Stripe and the vendor completes onboarding, where enabled for your plan and store.
• PayPal Payouts — a provider option only after your store connects PayPal and the vendor supplies a receiving email, where enabled for your plan and store.
• Manual — bank wire, NEFT/IMPS/UPI, SEPA, ACH, or another method you send yourself and then mark as paid with a reference.

A method can appear in your choices before its provider is connected. Check the connection state on the payout screen before dispatch; an unconnected provider cannot send money. A manual method remains available for a transfer you make yourself.

Payout schedule

Choose a cadence for reviewing and preparing payouts:

• Frequency — weekly, every two weeks, monthly, or manual.
• Minimum threshold — small earnings roll forward until a vendor clears the minimum, so you're not sending trivial transfers.
• Return-risk reserve (optional) — hold back a small, capped percentage on payouts to higher-return vendors until returns settle, then release it automatically. (This becomes smarter when ReturnsIQ is connected — see the Integrations guide.)

Connect your own accounts

Connect your own PayPal or card-processor account before offering its provider payout route. The connection screen tells you whether credentials are saved; test the connection and check the vendor's receiving setup before sending. Until then, use a manual method if you need to pay a vendor. VendorIQ records the workflow and does not hold your funds.

How disbursement flows

VendorIQ calculates eligible earnings from paid and fulfilled orders after applicable holds and thresholds. Review each vendor's gross, commission, and net before sending money. A connected provider flow can send only when your store's payout workflow is enabled and an authorized merchant confirms the send, unless you have explicitly enabled an eligible automatic workflow. Missing credentials, vendor setup, funding or an unconfirmed provider result keep a payout from being shown as settled. Bank transfers remain manual: record completion only after you have sent and verified the payment yourself.

Returns & Disputes

Money often changes after a sale, and a marketplace needs a clean way to handle it across many sellers.

Returns

The returns screen lists every vendor-handled return and refund, filterable however you need. Vendors process their own returns in their portal, but you can override any vendor decision with an audit note when a situation needs your call.

Dispute management

The dispute management screen brings refunds, chargebacks, and customer-vendor disputes into one place, with summary counts and filters. When the case has a verified shopper link and an AI provider is available, opening it may produce a suggested resolution and draft replies. Cases without that evidence remain fully manageable without an AI suggestion. Final resolution stays with you, the merchant.

Your Storefront & Marketplace

This is what makes VendorIQ a marketplace and not just a back-office tool: a public, shoppable storefront presence for your vendors, published with a click.

Storefront vendor pages

The setup screen creates a public vendor directory and one shared vendor-profile page. It shows the recorded result of each page separately, so you can retry a failed step and open both pages on your store before sharing them. Shoppers selecting an eligible, approved vendor see that seller's details on the shared page; VendorIQ does not create a separate Shopify page for every seller. An unclaimed catalog-import seller stays off the public pages until they claim the account. A deep link helps you add the directory to your store navigation without editing theme code.

Featured vendors

Pin up to 10 vendors to the top of the directory to spotlight your best sellers, a seasonal collection, or newly onboarded partners.

Storefront widget customization

Style the on-storefront pieces — vendor badges, review blocks, and Q&A sections — to match your brand, so the marketplace looks like a native part of your store rather than a bolt-on.

Vendor portal settings

Manage the standalone site your vendors log into (covered in full under The Vendor Portal): sign-in and registration links, branding, a demo preview, an optional custom URL, and toggles for analytics and messaging.

Gift choices on your storefront

If your store offers gifting, turn it on under Settings → Gifting, then place the Gift Options block in your Shopify theme. Eligible shoppers can enter recipient details and a message; the block confirms that the choice was saved before checkout. The same settings page controls preparation time for native-app gifts and whether a sender completion notice is offered. Its sample form is a design preview, so test a real product and cart in your published theme before advertising the option.

Local Delivery & Pickup

VendorIQ can help a local marketplace answer the question a shopper asks first: “Can this seller serve my address, and when?” The delivery tools live in VendorIQ's marketplace edition. Start with Delivery and Settings → Delivery, then have each vendor finish their own service area and schedule in the vendor portal.

Show only useful local options

Vendors set the areas they serve and the way they operate. A shopper checking an address can see whether a vendor delivers there, and can choose pickup where that vendor offers it. The public vendor directory can use location and availability to help shoppers find a relevant seller instead of browsing a list that cannot serve them.

For products assigned to VendorIQ sellers, Shopify checkout must offer a verified seller pickup option or VendorIQ's own live delivery rate. An ordinary flat shipping rate or Shopify's native Local Delivery option cannot complete checkout for those products. Set a delivery area for every seller whose goods you want to ship. If one shipping group also contains an item whose delivery fee VendorIQ cannot price, the live rate is unavailable for that group; offer verified pickup where Shopify shows it or ask the shopper to place separate orders. Settings → Delivery rates & plan shows whether your Shopify plan can use the live-rate path and what still needs setup. If live rates are unavailable, offer verified pickup until the store becomes eligible. Check the actual checkout option before promising delivery to shoppers.

Check Shopify's fulfillment processing time alongside the live delivery rate. A later processing day can keep VendorIQ's delivery rate off checkout; set Shopify to the same-day service your sellers can actually fulfill, then check the buyer's full message in a test checkout. If a shopper reserves a delivery window, that chosen window is the arrival time to communicate. An area-level minute estimate helps compare sellers but is not a booked arrival time and should never replace the chosen window. Check the shipping method, Shopify's date message, and the reserved window together before promising a time. The Local commerce card keeps this step unverified until Shopify's setting can be read and the checkout promise is checked.

If your store also uses the VendorIQ native shopper app, Settings → Native shopper app — Shopify config has separate pickup and delivery cart choices. Native delivery cart can place every supported, quoted delivery-fee line in a Shopify cart and check those lines before hosted checkout. It is separate from pickup and does not require Shopify Customer Account sign-in. Keep it off for customer checkout until Kernvel verifies that Shopify keeps the chosen local-delivery option through payment for your store and shopper app build. A public Headless Storefront token or one successful test checkout is not enough to establish that. When the required cart path is unavailable, the app retains the basket and stops that handoff. Ask Kernvel for the readiness check before adding the public token and enabling this choice.

For pickup in a supported native app build, the shopper can connect a matching Shopify customer account so Shopify can prepare the pickup cart and use their saved address. In the same settings page, enable the Shopify customer account connection for pickup, enter the public client ID from your Shopify Customer Account application, and register the redirect address shown on the page. Shoppers still sign in to VendorIQ with an email code; the Shopify connection must use that same email. It helps with pickup checkout and does not unlock older orders or support conversations.

Let vendors own their schedule

In the vendor portal → Delivery, each vendor sets recurring delivery windows, pickup points, opening hours, and capacity. When a shopper reserves a window, VendorIQ briefly holds the capacity while they check out. A vendor without configured windows offers no bookable slots. Settings → Delivery time slots & pickup in the merchant admin explains how to enable the storefront's Delivery Checker block and slot picker.

For pickup, the store owner assigns the vendor's Shopify Location and enables local pickup for that Location in Shopify. Check its address, pickup settings, and the selected item's stock before inviting shoppers to use it. A point without the needed stock or Shopify pickup option may not appear at hosted checkout. A Shopify Location change clears the recorded pickup readiness; check the buyer's pickup option again before treating the change as ready. The vendor's pickup form keeps its own label and address on file; Shopify's Location details are what shoppers see in the pickup flow.

If the app says pickup reservations are paused, it will hide VendorIQ pickup windows until the store's paid-pickup exception handling is ready. A saved pickup point or an old slot does not override that pause. Shopify's ordinary pickup option is a separate checkout choice; verify what Shopify actually offers before promising a reserved time.

See what is ready before you launch

The Local commerce card on Dashboard, Hyperlocal, and Delivery gives each setup step its own status and next action. It distinguishes a saved setting from a confirmed Shopify checkout option. Open its checklist to see which action belongs to you, which belongs to a seller, and which still needs a checkout test. A yellow or unavailable status is a prompt to finish that step; it is not a promise that the shopper can pay. Use the product and page publication results in the same way: an approval or saved form alone does not prove the listing is live.

Run the day from one place

The Operations Console gives dispatchers a live view of deliveries and exceptions. Vendors can enable their own live order screen to accept, prepare, and mark new orders ready. Delivery settings also let you choose cash-on-delivery rules, courier accounts, delivery-fee settlement, and whether a confirmed delivery marks the Shopify fulfillment complete. These controls start off unless you configure them; use the screen's status badges and warnings to see what is active for your store.

Food & Grocery Marketplaces

Turn on Food and Grocery independently for the same marketplace when you sell both. Each workflow appears for the sellers who use it: menus and serving times for food, and picking and substitutions for grocery. Existing products keep their normal storefront path.

Food menus that sellers can keep current

Turn on Settings → Food to give food vendors a Menu workspace in their portal. A vendor can arrange categories and items, offer sizes and add-ons, build combos, set serving times and pricing rules, mark an item unavailable, and publish the menu. The merchant chooses the allergen scheme; vendors must declare allergens before an item can be published. The Food page also shows when the shared serving-hours schedule is nearing Shopify's checkout limit, rather than silently accepting a menu that cannot be enforced there.

For a live order, a menu selection is priced against the current published configuration. If a menu item, choice, or serving window has changed, the shopper should review the new quote before paying. Food menus are optional until the merchant turns on Food and vendors publish menus.

Grocery picking and substitutions

Grocery vendors can use Pick order from an order in their portal to record the quantity they actually found, enter a measured weight where needed, and close each line. When an item is short, the workflow records the shortage and any proposed substitute so the customer can make a decision. Settings → Grocery refunds lets the merchant choose how eligible money is returned. Follow the order's refund state before treating a short item as settled; a pending refund is shown as pending.

Money, Product & Support Controls

The newer admin views make it easier to see why a marketplace number changed and who still needs to act.

• Money → Ledger, Vendor payables, Review queue, and Statements show recorded entries, what is owed to sellers, exceptions needing a decision, and earnings by cycle. Use these alongside the payout screen before sending money.
• Orders → New manual order handles phone and walk-in sales; an order's detail page is where refunds and commission decisions can be reviewed with their source evidence.
• Catalog → Product approvals → Competing offers and Changes awaiting approval lets you choose between approved sellers of the same item and review vendor changes before they replace a published listing.
• Operations → Support → Vendor support cases → Approved answers keeps issues and reusable answers visible to the team instead of burying them in messages.
• Operations → Missing order access lets staff review a shopper's request for one specific order when ownership cannot be proved automatically. Match the shopper's claim reference to purchase evidence and record your evidence reference. For an order Shopify still returns, verify the exact Shopify record before granting access. For an older order Shopify no longer returns, staff can instead review the exact order ID and number against VendorIQ's recorded seller shares, if those records exist. This older-record choice gives the shopper only the recorded purchase date and item names and quantities. It does not restore current payment, fulfillment, tracking, refund or return actions. A request or matching email is never approval by itself; contact the store for current older-order details.
• Settings → Tax routing and Notification preferences controls where tax is assigned and which operational alerts your staff receive. Regional cart-fee rules appear only when the store's fee-checkout feature is available and configured.

The dashboard's What's new card links to the views available to your edition and store. You can dismiss the card for yourself; the small Book a call link remains if you want help setting up a workflow.

A Branded Shopper App

For merchants using Kernvel Mobile App Builder, VendorIQ can provide local vendor discovery, delivery and pickup choices, menus, and a customer's own delivery and tracking details to a branded shopper app. In App Builder, you can shape how those screens look with a logo, colors, type size, button shape, card spacing, and light or dark style, and preview states such as an unavailable seller or expired slot. VendorIQ still controls the operating facts. App Builder's Orders view reads the signed-in customer's orders from Shopify Customer Account; VendorIQ-connected tracking and reorder details require a separately verified link to that specific purchase and store. Its local-commerce connection is separate from the merchant's public API; a public API key does not grant access to shopper or checkout routes.

If your store uses the separate VendorIQ native shopper app, its Orders screen starts with an email code. That code opens the request flow; an email match by itself does not establish who bought an order. For eligible newer purchases, the shopper also connects the Shopify customer account used for that purchase so VendorIQ can verify the order link. For older purchases without reliable account evidence, the shopper can request help for one order and give the store a claim reference. A merchant reviews the purchase evidence and approves or declines that exact order; the claim does not reveal an order simply because a requester knows an email or order number. If Shopify no longer returns an older order, an approved review can show only the purchase date and item names and quantities that VendorIQ recorded for its sellers. It does not show current Shopify status, money or after-sales actions. A shopper with a different checkout email, a phone-only purchase, or an unavailable Shopify connection should contact the store through this review path. App Builder's separate Orders view uses Shopify Customer Account and does not offer this VendorIQ native missing-order review screen.

App Builder is currently a limited-availability companion. In VendorIQ, open Hyperlocal to see the local-shopping walkthrough and whether your store has an App Builder hand-off. If your store is not yet eligible, use Book a call there to discuss the launch path; do not promise shoppers an app download until your store's build and publication are complete.

Invoicing

The vendor invoices screen generates printable per-period statements for each vendor — showing gross revenue, commission, and net payout — for any date range you pick. List, open, download as PDF, or delete them, with running totals across the set. It's the paper trail your vendors (and your accountant) expect.

Email Marketing & Coupons

VendorIQ includes the tools to grow the marketplace, not just run it.

Email marketing

• Email provider setup — connect your email service, set a primary sender, and send a test before you go live.
• Email campaigns — create, schedule, and track campaigns, with status tiles and a per-campaign editor so you can see what's drafted, scheduled, and sent.

Email volume and the number of campaigns you can send each month scale with your plan — see Pricing & Plans.

Vendor coupons

Vendors can create their own discount codes, and you stay in control: the vendor coupons screen is a review queue where you approve or reject each code (in bulk, with a reason if you decline). On approval, a coupon goes live and syncs to your Shopify discounts automatically.

Analytics & Cross-Shop Benchmarks

VendorIQ turns your marketplace's activity into a clear picture of what's working.

• Analytics dashboard — revenue and commission trends, order volume, fulfillment rate, average order value, top vendors, order-status mix, categories, and the distribution of listing quality across your catalog.
• Revenue report — gross sales, commission earned, and vendor payouts over time.
• Vendor performance — your top earners and the sellers who need coaching, ranked by revenue, ratings, or fulfillment speed.
• Referrals — vendor-to-vendor referral attribution, a leaderboard, and an activity log, so you can reward the vendors who bring in other vendors.
• Cross-shop benchmarks — see your key metrics against anonymized, same-tier VendorIQ marketplaces, with your percentile on each metric, so you know whether your numbers are actually good — not just whether they went up.

Settings & the Catalog-Import Wizard

The Settings hub is where you shape how your marketplace behaves.

The settings hub

• Marketplace behavior — registration on or off, auto-approve vendors or hold for review, verification requirements, default commission, minimum order value, whether vendors manage their own returns, and whether reviews are required.
• Portal — how the vendor portal looks and works.
• Notifications — choose which channels fire for each event, backed by an in-app feed and a bell with a live unread indicator.
• General — timezone, currency, date format, and maintenance mode.
• AI toggles — turn AI features on or off per shop.
• Vendor custom fields, product field visibility, and product metafields — capture region-specific vendor data, choose which supported optional product fields appear in the seller editor, and define storefront-visible product attributes. Essential listing and price fields stay available so a seller can still create a valid product. Check the seller editor after saving; the Settings preview shows editor controls, not a live storefront product card.

Saved replies, order routing rules, featured vendors, payout methods, and your billing and plan are all reachable from here too.

The catalog-import wizard

This is the fastest way to turn a single-seller store into a marketplace. The catalog-import wizard scans your existing Shopify catalog, auto-detects the vendor behind each product, lets you review and remap in bulk, and then writes the vendor-product links that power splitting, commissions, and payouts. One pass, and your existing catalog is marketplace-ready.

The setup guide

A first-run setup guide gives you a checklist to launch, and it auto-detects most steps as you complete them, so you always know what's left.

The Vendor Portal

Every seller in your marketplace gets their own standalone, self-service portal — a full site they log into with no Shopify access needed. Each portal is branded with your marketplace's logo, name, and color, and a vendor can even hold accounts across multiple marketplaces. This is the seller side of VendorIQ, and it's a first-class product in its own right.

Here's what each vendor can do.

Discovery, application & onboarding

• Find your marketplace through a branded recruitment landing page and a public vendor directory (sortable by top-rated, most products, newest, or nearest).
• Apply or register with business name, email, password, type, phone, website, description, tax ID, and any custom fields you require. Invitation links can pre-fill (and lock) the email and may auto-approve.
• Get through onboarding smoothly with email verification, password reset, clear application-status handling, and a guided checklist (complete profile → set payout method → add products) with a progress bar.

Profile, branding & storefront presence

• Edit business info, upload a logo, keep contact and address details current, fill your custom fields, change password, and set notification preferences (per-event email toggles, plus immediate/daily/weekly cadence — urgent payout and dispute alerts always send).
• Preview their storefront page — a live view of how their public vendor page looks (rating, review count, "member since," product counts, featured products) before and after going live.

Getting paid

• Set up a payout method from the ones you support, each labelled automated or manual — Stripe Connect, PayPal, bank wire, internet banking (ACH/NEFT/SEPA/UPI), or other (Wise, Payoneer, Payfast).
• Complete Stripe Connect onboarding when your marketplace has connected Stripe, see the account's reported setup status, self-report tax-form status, see an upcoming payout estimate, browse full payout history (period, gross, commission, net, method, reference, status), and download PDF invoices. An estimate or completed onboarding does not mean a payout was sent. All money is shown in your marketplace's real currency.

Product catalog & inventory

• Create, edit, delete, and duplicate products with images, variants, category, tags, and your marketplace metafields, in a grid or list view with search and status filters. New and imported products land in Pending until you approve them.
• Bulk CSV import (Shopify-format, template provided, up to 1,000 rows / 5MB, with a per-row report) and CSV export.
• Bulk stock editor to set stock and low-stock thresholds across your SKUs with a confirm step, plus alerts for products that are sold out or below the threshold you set. Sales-based stockout timing and reorder quantities are not currently available.

Orders & fulfillment

• Work orders with filters and a full money breakdown per order (subtotal, shipping, tax, commission deducted, net payout).
• Fulfill with tracking and carrier, with the option to ask Shopify to notify the customer after it confirms the fulfillment. Vendors also have an order timeline, tracking display, and a request-cancellation flow.

Returns & disputes

• Process returns through a full state machine (requested → review → approved → received → refunded, or rejected/cancelled): approve or reject, mark received, mark refunded with a reference.
• Respond to disputes — see the type, severity, status, evidence, communication log, and timeline, and post a written response with evidence links. (Final resolution stays with you, the merchant.)

Customer engagement

• Reviews — an inbox and summary (rating, sentiment, unanswered count) where vendors reply publicly, flag abusive reviews, and use an AI-drafted reply to respond faster.
• Customer Q&A — a per-product questions inbox to answer or hide, with an AI-drafted answer on tap.
• Direct messages with you (the marketplace admin), a notification center with priority and unread counts, and real-time updates so new orders and messages appear without a refresh.

Discount codes (coupons)

Vendors create and manage their own codes — percentage, description, product scope, validity dates, and usage limits — and can activate, deactivate, edit, or delete them and watch live usage and expiry. (New codes flow to your coupon approval queue.)

Analytics & dashboard

• Dashboard — today's orders versus yesterday, pending orders, month revenue versus last month, pending payout, a 30-day trend, recent orders, and top stockout alerts.
• Analytics page — revenue trend by day, week, or month, top products, return rate, and an overall performance score.

Referrals — grow the marketplace

Each vendor gets a personal referral link with share copy, referral stats (signups, active vendors, clicks), and a week/month/all-time leaderboard with their own rank highlighted — turning your best sellers into recruiters.

AI tools for vendors

When your plan includes vendor AI, sellers can run listing-quality scoring and use writing or reply tools where enabled. The portal also shows sales history, observed stock alerts, and performance views. Product demand projections need complete, sufficient order history; the app shows when one is unavailable. Forecast-derived stockout and reorder advice is not currently available. Treat pricing and performance suggestions as advice to review, not an automatic change.

The AI Features

AI assistance depends on your plan, store settings, verified source data, and the availability of a provider. Some tools are on demand; some produce a suggestion only after an order or case is created. An unavailable result is not a completed review or a safe reason to change money, fulfillment, or seller status. Your team keeps the final decision.

Trust & safety

• Business verification — reads a vendor's uploaded business document, extracts the entity name, registration number, jurisdiction, and dates, and returns a trust score. Approve legitimate businesses in seconds; flag mismatched paperwork before it's a problem.
• Vendor vetting — scores a new application on legitimacy, quality, pricing, fulfillment capability, and risk, with an approve / review / reject recommendation. Faster, more consistent seller decisions.
• Vendor fraud scoring — watches each seller's behavior over time (order velocity, ratings, pricing churn, returns, chargebacks). Catch bad actors before they rack up chargebacks.
• Order fraud scoring — on eligible plans, qualifying vendor orders are scored asynchronously after ingest and may surface marketplace-specific risk for review. A score is an advisory signal; it does not by itself stop fulfillment or payout.
• Review moderation — when enabled, helps screen reviews for spam or inappropriate content and recommends a response for staff review. Keep a human decision for uncertain cases.

Catalog & merchandising

• Product categorization & auto-tagging — assigns category, subcategory, tags, and attributes. A consistent, searchable catalog without hand-tagging.
• Listing-quality scoring — grades title, description, images, and attributes against peers, with the weakest area called out and concrete fixes. Sellers lift conversion; the marketplace looks professional.
• AI description generation — writes an improved title, formatted body, five bullets, keywords, and meta description. Polished, search-friendly listings in one click.
• Cross-sell recommendations — "customers who bought this also bought…" from purchase history. Larger orders and more discovery.

Operations & money

• Product demand insights — show a projection only when the product has enough complete, verified order history. An unavailable forecast is shown plainly; forecast-derived stockout and reorder advice is not currently available.
• Vendor performance prediction — projects growth potential and churn risk with recommendations. Know which sellers to invest in before it shows up in revenue.
• Pricing & discount suggestions — show available pricing evidence and advice without changing a product price automatically. Review the evidence before changing a discount.
• Commission review — shows category activity and existing rates. Adaptive rate recommendations and acceptance are paused until their results can be reliably measured.
• Smart order routing — when several vendors can fulfill an item, picks the best by proximity, speed, on-time record, and capacity, with a ranked backup. Faster deliveries, automatic fallback.

Support & customer experience

• Dispute-resolution assistant — for a case with a verified shopper link and an available provider, can suggest a resolution and draft responses when staff open it. The merchant reviews and resolves the case.
• Vendor support assistant — answers sellers' how-to questions from your marketplace's own help content, cites its sources, and says "I don't know" rather than inventing. Instant seller help, fewer tickets.
• Storefront product assistant — answers shopper questions on a product page ("is this dishwasher safe?", "does it ship to Australia?") from that product's details, past answers, and your policies. Instant answers that lift conversion.

Intelligence & benchmarking

• Marketplace health & anomaly detection — watches daily vitals (orders, sales, disputes, fraud alerts, signups) and raises early-warning alerts, rolled into one health score. Spot trouble the day it starts.
• Cross-marketplace benchmarks — ranks your refund rate, average order value, fulfillment speed, listing quality, and review scores against comparable marketplaces (anonymized, by percentile). Know whether your numbers are actually good.

Pricing & Plans

VendorIQ has one free plan and four paid tiers, priced by the number of live vendors you run. The Free plan is $0 forever; each paid plan comes with a 14-day free trial. Save about 17% with annual billing — pay 10× the monthly price and get two months free. Everything is billed through Shopify.

What the caps mean

Beyond the vendor cap, each plan sets a few usage allowances so pricing stays predictable:

• The vendor cap counts only your approved, live vendors.
• The AI generations allowance resets daily; email and campaign allowances reset each calendar month.
• If you reach a cap, VendorIQ shows an upgrade prompt rather than silently failing — you decide whether to move up a tier.

Switching plans

Change plans any time from Billing. Upgrades and downgrades go through Shopify's normal subscription billing, and your features and caps adjust to the new plan. Cancel any time — you move to the Free plan at the end of your current billing period, and your marketplace data stays intact.

Troubleshooting & FAQ

"Is VendorIQ a marketplace, or just a payouts tool?"

A full marketplace. Vendors get their own branded self-service portal, your storefront gets a public vendor directory and profile pages, orders split across sellers, and you moderate products, reviews, questions, returns, and disputes. Payout workflows are one part of that system.

"How do I turn my existing single-seller store into a marketplace?"

Run the catalog-import wizard (under Settings). It scans your Shopify catalog, auto-detects the vendor behind each product, lets you review and remap in bulk, and writes the vendor-product links that power splitting, commissions, and payouts — all in one pass. From there, invite new sellers so they onboard themselves.

"Do my vendors need a Shopify account?"

No. Each vendor logs into a standalone portal branded to your marketplace — no Shopify access required. They manage their own products, inventory, orders, fulfillment, returns, reviews, questions, and coupons from there.

"Does VendorIQ hold my money?"

No. When a provider payout is available, it sends from the account you connected for your store; for a manual transfer, you pay from your own bank. VendorIQ records the status and does not hold or pool your funds. If you have not connected a provider, its payout route cannot send.

"Can I pay different vendors different ways?"

Yes. Each vendor can use an allowed payout method — for example PayPal, bank transfer, or a card processor. Provider methods send only when your store and that vendor are ready. A bulk action reports each vendor's result; an unavailable provider leaves that payout unpaid for follow-up. For a manual method, you make the transfer and record its reference after verifying it.

"A vendor's earnings aren't showing up for payout — why?"

An order's earnings become eligible only once the order is paid and shipped, past any hold or reserve window, and above your minimum threshold. Earnings below the minimum roll forward to the next run. Check the order's fulfillment status and the vendor's accruing total.

"A customer returned an item after I already paid the vendor."

VendorIQ nets the correction against the vendor's next payout automatically, so you don't have to chase anyone to send money back. If you've enabled a return-risk reserve, a capped amount is held back on higher-return vendors and released once returns settle.

"How many vendors can I have?"

That depends on your plan — 5 on Free, 25 on Growth, 100 on Professional, 400 on Scale, and unlimited on Enterprise. The cap counts only your approved, live vendors. If you're growing past your tier, VendorIQ prompts you to upgrade.

"How do I set a promotional commission rate for one month?"

Create a commission rule with an effective-from and effective-until date. It switches itself on and off automatically, and outside that window your normal rate applies.

"Is my data safe and private?"

VendorIQ keeps each store's marketplace records separate and restricts app connections to the store and feature they serve. It needs buyer contact and shipping details to split, fulfill, and support marketplace orders. ReturnsIQ supplies a seller-level return signal; StockIQ plans inventory separately. A branded shopper app can request a signed-in customer's own order and delivery details after identity checks. See Integrations for the data each connection uses and Privacy Policy for data requests and retention.

"Do I need other Kernvel apps to use VendorIQ?"

No — VendorIQ's marketplace works on its own. ReturnsIQ can add advisory vendor return-risk context; StockIQ handles inventory planning separately; and a store using the limited-availability Kernvel Mobile App Builder can put VendorIQ's local-shopping experience in its branded shopper app. None is required for ordinary vendor onboarding, order splitting, or marketplace operations. See the Integrations guide.

Getting Help

In-App Support

Reach out from inside VendorIQ any time — your plan determines response speed.

Email Support

For longer or sensitive questions, email support@kernvellabs.com. Include:

• Your store URL
• The vendor, order, payout, or feature you're asking about
• Screenshots if relevant

Documentation

You're reading it. This guide is updated as new features ship — check back when you upgrade plans or notice something new in the app. For developers building on marketplace data, see the API Reference; for cross-app capabilities, see the Integrations guide.

Glossary

Marketplace — your Shopify store with VendorIQ, where multiple vendors list products, fulfill their own orders, and get paid a share of each sale.

Vendor — a seller in your marketplace. They apply and onboard through a branded self-service portal, list products, fulfill orders, handle returns, and receive payouts.

Vendor portal — the standalone, self-service site each vendor logs into (no Shopify access needed), branded to your marketplace.

Vendor directory — the merchant's searchable roster of all vendors in the admin; also the public, shoppable directory published to your storefront.

Order split (vendor order) — the per-vendor share of a Shopify order: that vendor's line items, subtotal, commission, and net payout.

Order routing rule — an override that assigns line items to a specific vendor by SKU prefix, tag, or product type.

Commission rule — a configurable rule deciding how much you keep from a sale. Has a scope (global, category, vendor, product, order-size tier), a rate type (percentage, fixed per order, fixed per item, margin), optional conditions, a priority, and optional effective dates.

Payout — a single payment to a vendor covering their eligible earnings for a period, with a gross, commission, net, statement, and payment reference.

Payout method — how a vendor is paid: card processor (Stripe), PayPal, or a manual transfer (bank wire, NEFT/IMPS/UPI, SEPA, ACH, or other).

Payout schedule — the cadence (weekly, biweekly, monthly, or manual), minimum threshold, and optional return-risk reserve that govern when vendors get paid.

Return-risk reserve — an optional, capped amount held back on payouts to higher-return vendors, released automatically once returns settle.

Catalog-import wizard — the tool that scans your existing Shopify catalog, detects the vendor behind each product, and writes the vendor-product links that turn a single-seller store into a marketplace.

Dispute — a refund, chargeback, or customer-vendor conflict tracked in one place; an eligible case may have an AI suggestion, and the merchant makes the final call.

Invoice — a printable per-period statement for a vendor showing gross revenue, commission, and net payout.

Cross-shop benchmarks — your key metrics compared against anonymized, same-tier VendorIQ marketplaces, shown as your percentile per metric.

Document version 2.0 · Last updated July 2026 · Questions? support@kernvellabs.com