Nexus Market vendors: how to read a profile before you buy

The vendor list is where the market earns its name and where most of the risk lives. A profile is a document, not an ad. Here is what each part of it is for, in the order to read it.

The profile, field by field

01Ratings, and the gap between them.Every completed order leaves a star rating. Two numbers matter: the average, and the count. A 4.9 on 12,000 orders is a different vendor than a 4.9 on 14. The count is the real credential. New vendors have a flagged status until they pass a minimum order count, and the flag is there for a reason, not as an insult.

02Shipped versus completed."Shipped" means the vendor marked the order as sent. "Completed" means you received it and confirmed, or the timer ran out. A vendor with thousands shipped and a small tail of never completed ones is normal. A vendor whose completed count barely moves while shipped climbs is one to read the recent feedback on before buying, not after.

03Response time and last active.The profile shows how fast the vendor answers chat and when they were last seen. A vendor who answers in minutes and was online an hour ago can handle a problem mid order. A vendor whose last active is three weeks out is a vendor you are buying from on faith, with the timer as your only backup.

04The PGP key.Vendors publish a PGP key for shipping details and order chat. If you want your delivery address to be encrypted end to end, you encrypt it with the key before you send it. Vendors who skip PGP and take the address in plain chat are trading convenience for exposure, and you are the one holding the exposed part. For a first order with a new vendor, use a delivery detail you can afford to be seen.

05Shipping options and costs.Each listing shows the shipping methods the vendor offers and what each costs, and the options differ by country. Read the shipping line before the price line, because a cheap product with a 3x shipping cost is not a cheap product. The checkout total, product plus shipping plus the buyer fee, is the number to compare.

06Feedback text, newest first.Stars are a summary; the text is the record. Sort newest first and read five. You are looking for a pattern: the same complaint twice is a pattern, the same praise twice is also a pattern, and a vendor who responds to complaints in the thread is a vendor who will respond to yours.

Disputes: when to open one, and what it does

A dispute locks the order in escrow and hands it to moderation. It is a strong tool, which is why the timing rules matter:

Open it before the auto finalize timer ends.After the timer, the escrow releases and the dispute becomes a request instead of a lock. The order page shows the countdown; a dispute opened at 24 hours left behaves very differently from one opened at 2.
Bring the evidence the thread is built for.Chat logs are in the market, so they are there for moderators without you exporting anything. Photos of what arrived, or did not arrive, go in the thread. Tracking, if the vendor provided it, is part of the record automatically.
Know the three outcomes.Full release to you, split, or release to the vendor. The common ones are full refund for items that never arrived and release to the vendor for items that arrived as listed. "Arrived as listed" is judged from your photos and the listing text, which is why reading the listing text carefully before you buy is a dispute-prevention measure.

Most disputes close within a day. The market's moderation team is small relative to order volume, and the queue is the reason the timer exists at all: disputes that open on time resolve fast, disputes that open late resolve slowly.

The vendor side, for the ones who sell

Vendor fees run from 1.1% for established high volume profiles to 5% for new ones, and the tier drops as volume and rating climb, which is why the fee column on a profile is also a quality signal. Vendors can import their stats from other markets, which shortcuts the cold start, and can set custom shipping profiles per listing. The vendor fee is charged on the sale, and the money arrives after escrow releases, so a vendor's cash flow is as dependent on the timer as a buyer's refund is. That shared dependency is what keeps both sides honest about the auto finalize window.

A first order, the conservative version

Pick a vendor with a five figure completed count

Not the highest stars, the highest count. Volume is the sample size.

Read the five newest feedback entries

Not the five oldest, which are from a different vendor.

Start with a low total order

The fee is a percentage, so a small first order costs less to be wrong about. A vendor who handles it well earns the bigger orders; one who does not costs you a rounding error.

Set a reminder for the finalize timer

Phone alarm, calendar, whatever. Confirming on time is the entire game of not losing money to silence.