What Were Tracks' Biggest Challenges Building a Multi-Vendor Surf Marketplace?
Tracks' challenges were less about the storefront and more about everything behind it: structuring vendors, organising a varied catalogue, defining what happens after every order, and planning for the parts that do not always go to plan.
Turning a Community Idea Into a Multi-Vendor Structure
The challenge: Tracks needed several independent brands to operate within one marketplace, each with its own products and fulfilment needs, while the Tracks team kept a clear view of the wider business from a single place.
The solution: Shipturtle worked alongside Tracks to configure the multi-vendor marketplace on Shopify. That included setting up vendor accounts, organising product assignments, and establishing workflows for routing orders to the relevant vendors, so each brand could operate within the marketplace while Tracks managed the whole operation centrally.
Making a Diverse Catalogue Feel Like One Shop
The challenge: The catalogue spanned surfwear, apparel, accessories, prints, and lifestyle products from different brands. Simply uploading products was not enough. They had to be organised in a way that made sense to customers and stayed manageable as the marketplace grew.
The solution: Shipturtle worked with the Tracks team on product migration and catalogue organisation. That meant mapping categories and subcategories, defining attributes such as age, gender, and colour, and working through regional publishing requirements. Shipping profiles and tracking configurations were set up at the same time, so product management stayed connected to how orders would actually be fulfilled. Catalogue work continued as an ongoing exercise rather than a one-time upload.
Building the Processes Behind Every Order
The challenge: Getting products onto the website was only one part of the job. Once customers start shopping, the marketplace needs clear answers to practical questions. How does an order reach the right vendor? How is shipping managed? How are commissions calculated? When does a vendor get paid?
The solution: Shipturtle configured vendor-specific order workflows and worked through shipping and fulfilment arrangements with Tracks. It also helped establish commission and payout processes, giving the team a clearer way to monitor order-level payouts and manage vendor payments. The focus was on making sure the marketplace could manage what happened after an order was placed, not just take the order.
Handling Returns When Multiple Vendors Are Involved
The challenge: Returns become more involved when several vendors are part of the process. A customer raises a request, the merchant reviews it, the vendor may need to receive and inspect the product, and the refund must then be handled, with different responsibilities depending on why the product is being returned.
The solution: Shipturtle mapped the full return journey with Tracks, covering customer return requests, merchant approvals, vendor responsibilities, return shipping, and refund handling. It also prepared standard operating procedures and vendor instructions, so vendors knew what to do once a return was approved, including how return shipping costs would be handled in different situations. The result is a defined process for the team to follow instead of working out every return from scratch.
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