Marketplaces & Two-Sided Platforms// topic
Marketplace architecture and the transaction data model
In short
The schema and state machines underneath every marketplace — listings, availability, holds, orders and the transitions between them — and the modelling decisions that are expensive to reverse once real supply is on the platform.
2 pages
definitions
- Availability: a set of intervals, not a grid of day cellsAvailability is not a stored fact. It is the answer to a question, computed from recurring rules, exceptions and what has already been consumed — and a day-cell table is a cache of that answer.definition8 min
- Inventory hold: the row that exists so the second buyer is refusedA hold is a record, not a screen state. It names one unit of supply, one claimant, one expiry and one reason — and while it lives, nothing else may overlap that unit.definition7 min
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