User Flows

Purpose

End-to-end paths through the product for each role, so screens and API endpoints have a clear sequence to support.

Merchant Flow

1. Register / sign up, select "Business" role
2. Create an Offer (name, price, category: digital or physical)
3. Create a Campaign for that Offer: set commission rate, publish
4. Review incoming creator Applications (see each creator's audience/niche/conversion data)
5. Approve or reject applications
6. Dashboard: view clicks/sales/creators per campaign
7. Receive automatic billing notifications as sales are accepted and billed each cycle (via Swich) — not payout notifications; merchants are billed, not paid out, under the current model

Creator Flow

1. Sign up, select "Creator" role
2. Browse/discover campaigns (by category: digital vs. physical, per raw data doc; by niche/fit, per AI matching discussed for post-MVP)
3. Apply to a campaign with audience info attached
4. On approval, receive a unique AffiliateLink
5. Share the link (blog, social, etc.)
6. Dashboard: view impressions/clicks/sales and running commission balance
7. Receive automatic payout as sales verify — no invoicing step

Traced Example (from live site, useful as a reference case for engineering + QA)

13:58 — post published (@mia.dscvr)
14:02 — click on sellvia.link/mia-glow
14:06 — add to cart, $68.00
14:07 — purchase verified ✓, order #4128
→ Commission: $13.60 to @mia.dscvr (20%)
→ Merchant retains: $54.40

This exact sequence is a good basis for an end-to-end test case once attribution tracking is built.

Onboarding Flow (shared)

Single unified sign-up form; user picks "Merchant" or "Creator," then flow branches (per raw data doc's "Unified Onboarding" feature). See Open Question in User Roles about whether a single account can hold both roles.

Open Questions

• Does the creator discovery/browse experience ship with AI-based niche matching at MVP, or start as manual category filtering with matching added later? (See 02. Technical Architecture → AI Services, once written.)
• What does the merchant see if zero creators apply to a campaign within some time window — any nudge/notification logic?

Diagrams

Merchant Flow Diagram

sequenceDiagram
    participant M as Merchant
    participant P as SellVia Platform
    participant C as Creator

    M->>P: Sign up as Business
    M->>P: Create Offer
    M->>P: Create Campaign (set commission rate)
    P->>P: Campaign goes live
    C->>P: Applies to Campaign
    P->>M: Notify: new application
    M->>P: Approve application
    P->>C: Generate AffiliateLink, notify Creator
    C->>P: Views dashboard (clicks/sales)

Creator Flow Diagram

sequenceDiagram
    participant C as Creator
    participant P as SellVia Platform
    participant F as Follower

    C->>P: Sign up as Creator
    C->>P: Browses/discovers Campaigns
    C->>P: Applies to Campaign
    P->>C: Approved, AffiliateLink issued
    C->>F: Shares link (social, bio)
    F->>P: Clicks link, buys via merchant's Shopify checkout
    P->>C: Commission recorded as owed once sale is accepted
    P->>C: Commission becomes available once merchant's billing cycle is charged (via Swich)
    P->>C: Payout at threshold ($50, amount TBD in PKR)

Update (2026-08-23): Pakistan/Shopify Scope — "Campaign" Above Means "Offer"

Per 02. Architecture Decision Log: no separate Campaign entity (01. Domain Model) — every "Campaign" above (Merchant Flow steps 3–6, Creator Flow steps 2–3, both diagrams) means Offer. Market is Pakistan-only, PKR only; buyer checkout happens on the merchant's own Shopify store, not a SellVia-hosted checkout; "buys via checkout" in the Creator Flow Diagram means the merchant's Shopify checkout, attributed back via Shopify webhook, not a live per-sale split — commission is credited once the merchant's billing cycle is settled via Swich (not bank transfer, as this note previously said), not "instantly" as the diagram above previously showed (diagram corrected same date). Payout threshold ($50 in the diagrams) is unchanged in mechanism but should be read in PKR-equivalent terms once a threshold is set for the new currency — not yet re-specified, flagged as an open item.