Listing visibility and TradeCircles
How a listing's Public / TradeCircle setting works, what each setting means for who can see what, and how the visibility chip behaves on a card.
Every listing has exactly one visibility setting: Public or TradeCircle. The setting controls whether the listing appears in public surfaces and who can see it on private surfaces. This article explains what the toggle does, where you set it, and what each side (seller and buyer) sees as a result.
The two settings
Public
The default. A Public listing:
- Appears in search — keyword + filter results across the marketplace.
- Appears in recommended strips ("recommended for you", "trending", "nearby").
- Appears in similar listings widgets on every other listing's detail page.
- Appears in search autocomplete.
- Counts toward view-count metrics (hits to its detail page bump the counter).
This is what most listings should be. Public surfaces are how most buyers discover equipment, and a public listing maximises your reach.
TradeCircle
A private listing. A TradeCircle listing:
- Does not appear in any of the public surfaces above. Search, recommended, similar, autocomplete — all skip it.
- Does not count toward view-count metrics. Hits from authorized viewers don't bump the counter; the platform deliberately doesn't surface "this circle listing has 500 views" because that's both a leakage signal and unhelpful.
- Appears on the seller's profile for buyers who have access to at least one of the circles the listing is attached to.
- Appears on the circle's listings page at
/seller/{seller-slug}/circle/{circle-publicId}for authorized buyers. - Appears on the seller's own dashboard as one of their listings (visibility doesn't hide a listing from its owner).
A TradeCircle listing must be attached to at least one active circle. The form won't let you set visibility to TradeCircle without picking one.
Where you set it
In the listing-create form (Dashboard → Listings → Create new listing), there's a Visibility section near the bottom:
- Public — the default radio.
- TradeCircle — switching to this expands a list of your active circles. Tick the ones to attach.
A listing can be attached to multiple circles. If you have an Early access (Followers) circle and a Refurbished line (By-request) circle and you attach the same listing to both, then anyone in either circle can see it. That's how you broaden the audience: keep adding circles.
A small Private listing warning appears once you switch to TradeCircle, reminding you the listing won't surface on public discovery feeds. Read it.
What buyers see — the visibility chip
When a listing card renders for an authorized buyer (someone who has access to one of its circles), the card displays a small chip showing what kind of visibility it has:
| Who's looking | What the chip says |
|---|---|
| Public listing | No chip at all — public is the default and we don't clutter the card |
| Owner of the listing (you) | Private listing in muted purple — own-confirmation that this isn't on public surfaces |
| Buyer with access via exactly one visible circle | TradeCircle: <circle name> — tells the buyer where they're seeing this from |
| Buyer with access via multiple circles, or backend-edge cases | TradeCircle — generic chip; we never enumerate multiple circle names on one card |
The chip lives in the same row as year, hours, and condition on the search card and grid card layouts — it visually clusters with equipment metadata rather than competing with the title or price.
The chip is informational, not interactive. Clicking it does nothing — to manage your access to the circle, go to the seller's profile.
What buyers don't see
A non-authorized buyer (no follow, no grant) effectively can't see the listing exists. Specifically:
- Search results don't include it.
- The seller's profile listings tab doesn't show it.
- Any "similar listings" widget excludes it from candidates.
- Any direct URL like
/equipment/{publicId}returns a not-found page if they navigate to it manually. - Search autocomplete won't suggest its title or model.
The platform is consistent here — there's no "you can see the title but not the price" half-state. Either the listing exists for you or it doesn't.
What sellers see
You always see all your own listings, regardless of visibility, on:
- Dashboard → Listings — full table with the visibility chip on each row.
- The listing's detail page — shows the Private listing chip if it's TradeCircle.
- Search and similar widgets — do not surface your own private listings, because the same gating that hides them from random buyers also runs against you on those public surfaces. Use Dashboard → Listings to find them.
Pricing and currency display
A TradeCircle listing's pricing rules are exactly the same as a public listing — currency conversion, original-price preservation, USD normalization, all unchanged. The visibility setting controls who sees it, not what they see when they do.
How visibility interacts with UnitVault
UnitVault file access (per-document gating: Public, Sign-in required, Approval required, Internal only) is independent of TradeCircle visibility. They compose:
- A TradeCircle listing's Public-tier vault files are visible to anyone who can see the listing — i.e. authorized circle members.
- A TradeCircle listing's Approval-required vault files still require a per-file approval flow on top of the circle membership.
In other words: getting into the circle gets you to the listing page; getting to a specific document on that listing still respects the file's own access rules. See What is UnitVault for the document side.
A worked example
Maria's Early-access (Followers) circle has 80 members. Her Refurbished line (By-request) circle has 12 approved members. She lists a CAT 320E excavator and attaches it to both circles.
Who sees the listing?
- All 80 followers see it on Maria's profile (via the Early-access path).
- All 12 approved members of the Refurbished line see it on Maria's profile (via that path).
- The intersection (followers who are also Refurbished members — say 7 of them) see it via either route, but they only see the listing once.
- Buyers who are only followers see TradeCircle: Early-access on the card.
- Buyers who are only refurbished members see TradeCircle: Refurbished line on the card.
- Buyers in both circles see TradeCircle (generic) on the card — the platform doesn't enumerate multiple circle names.
- Maria sees Private listing on the card.
- Anyone else doesn't see the listing at all.
If Maria later promotes the listing to Public (via the listing-edit page when it ships), the chip disappears, the listing surfaces on search, and the circle members keep their access via the seller-profile path the same way they always did — visibility just got wider, not narrower.
See also
- What are TradeCircles? — concept overview and motivation.
- Creating and managing a TradeCircle — the full seller flow.
- Anatomy of a listing — the rest of the fields on the listing form.
- What is UnitVault — per-document access on top of listing visibility.