Requesting access as a buyer

How to find a TradeCircle, follow or apply to join, withdraw a pending request, and check the status of all your requests in one place.

Last updated 2026-04-30

If you're a buyer, you'll first encounter a TradeCircle on a seller's profile page. This article explains how to get in, how to track your requests, and what to expect when an application is approved or denied.

Where you'll see TradeCircles

A seller's profile page has a TradeCircles tab when they have at least one active circle. Each tile on that tab is one circle. The tile shows you:

The circle's avatar and name.
A short description, if the seller wrote one.
An access mode chip: Followers or By request.
A state chip telling you where you stand with this circle: Following, Member, Pending request, or no state chip if you have no relationship yet.
A button: depending on your state, Follow seller, Request access, Withdraw, View listings, or Manage (if you're the seller).

You'll also see a TradeCircle: <name> chip on a listing card on your saved listings, your dashboard listings table, search results, or the listing detail page — but only when you have access. The chip means: this listing is in this circle. If you don't have access to the circle, the listing doesn't appear in those surfaces at all.

Joining a Followers-mode circle

The Follow button on the circle tile is the same follow button you'd use on the seller's profile header. Clicking it:

Adds you to the seller's followers list (visible to other followers if their privacy is Public).
Automatically grants you access to all of the seller's Followers-mode circles immediately. No application, no waiting.

You're now a member. Click View listings on the tile to open the circle's listings page.

To leave: unfollow the seller from their profile header. You'll lose access to all their Followers-mode circles at once.

Joining a By-request circle

Click Request access on the tile. A modal opens.

Optional message. Write a short note explaining who you are and why you're a fit. Sellers reading dozens of requests will look at this. "Returning customer since 2022, last bought a Komatsu PC200 in March" is much more useful than no message at all. Maximum 1000 characters.
Submit. The request is sent. Your state on the tile flips to Pending.

Now wait. The seller will approve, deny, or leave it pending indefinitely. There's no fixed response time — most active sellers respond within a few days. You can keep using the rest of the marketplace normally; nothing about your account is in a "waiting" state.

When you're approved

The state chip on the tile flips to Member.
The button becomes View listings.
The grant has either an expiry date or permanent, set by the seller. If your grant expires, you'll silently fall out of the circle and the Request access button comes back. You can re-apply.

When you're denied

The state chip on the tile clears (no public Denied badge — your relationship status simply goes back to not a member).
The seller may have written a reason. You can see it in your buyer-side overview at /dashboard/circle-access (see below).
You can re-apply. There's no cooling-off period — the platform doesn't enforce one — but use judgement; rapid-fire reapplications won't help your case.

Withdrawing a pending request

Two places you can withdraw:

On the seller's profile, on the circle's tile — when the Pending state is loaded for that circle, the button becomes Withdraw. Click and confirm.
In your dashboard, under /dashboard/circle-access — your Pending requests list, each with its own Withdraw button.

Withdrawing flips the request's status to Withdrawn. It stays in your history at /dashboard/circle-access but no longer counts as pending. You can re-apply at any time.

Your circle-access overview

The page at /dashboard/circle-access is your buyer-side dashboard for everything TradeCircle-related. It shows all your access requests — across every seller you've ever applied to — with these filters:

Pending (default) — your active applications.
Approved — circles you currently have access to. Each row links to the circle's listings page.
Denied — your past denials, with reasons if the seller wrote any.
Withdrawn — applications you cancelled.
All — the full timeline.

For each row you see:

The seller's brand name and a link back to their profile.
The circle's name, description, avatar.
An Archived chip if the seller has since archived the circle (in which case the link to the listings page is removed — there's nothing to view).
The date you applied.
The date the seller responded, if any.
Your message and the seller's deny reason, if applicable.

Approved rows that are still Active show a View listings button. Pending rows show Withdraw. Denied / Withdrawn / archived-circle rows are read-only history.

What you'll see inside an authorized circle

Click View listings on an approved circle and you land on the seller's circle page at /seller/{seller-slug}/circle/{circle-publicId}. It's a focused listings page:

Same card design as the seller's main Listings tab — image, type badge, title, year + condition, price.
Pagination at the bottom for large circles.
A Back to seller link in the header so you can jump back to the rest of their profile.

From a card, click into a listing exactly the way you would on the public marketplace — same listing detail page, same UnitVault rules for documents, same contact options. The only difference is the listing won't appear publicly — search, recommended, similar, and autocomplete don't surface it. You can still link buyers you trust to the listing URL directly, of course; the access gate is on visibility, not on the URL itself.

Common questions

Will the seller know who I am? Yes. Your application carries your layered identity (your seller-profile brand if you have one, otherwise your company name, otherwise your full name) plus your message. The seller decides whether to approve based on that.

Can I see who else is in the circle? No — member identities aren't exposed to other members. Only the seller (the circle owner) sees the member list.

If a seller archives a circle, do I keep access to its listings? No. Archived circles disappear for non-owners, even prior members. The listings themselves still exist in the seller's inventory; they may bring them back to public, attach to a different circle, or leave them archived too. There's no automatic notification to members on archive — check /dashboard/circle-access if you suspect a circle disappeared.

Can I get notifications when a seller adds new listings to a circle I'm in? Not yet. The notification event types for this are reserved on the platform but the publisher isn't wired up in Phase 1. Once it lands, you'll be able to opt in / out per channel from your notification settings.