The total number of Haven installs has doubled in the last 30 days, the fastest growth rate we have seen yet!

Countries:

• Since launch, Haven has been used in more than 190 different countries and in over 50 different languages.
• The United States, Venezuela, and Iraq are the countries with the most users.

Platform split: Other Stats

• Haven has been installed on nearly 1,500 different types of mobile devices.
• Our network is growing. More than 22,000 listings are live on the network right now!

Upcoming releases

Even more features will be introduced into Haven soon:

• Haven app-to-app push notifications for chat, social, and order activities
• A massive social update that will introduce a personalised feed, instant updates, social notifications, and lay the groundwork for topic channels
• Ethereum integration that will allow for ETH and ERC-20 token payment support

It looks like Haven is really catching on.
Have you installed it on your iOS or Android device yet? Get it here!

Originally published at https://gethaven.app on November 14, 2019.

Haven Hits 50,000 Installs was originally published in gethaven on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Over the past two decades, being able to shop and sell online has changed the way many people around the world live their lives. Popular marketplace platforms like Ebay, Amazon and Alibaba became popular as a result of making it easier and more convenient over time for buyers and sellers alike to participate in ecommerce.

However, there is a downside to this.

Services like these bring us convenience at great cost to our privacy.

If you have been thinking about selling goods and services online or changing the way you shop to preserve more of your online privacy, here are some things to consider.

Why is privacy important?

First, it’s important to understand what we mean when we say “privacy.”

We define privacy as:

“A person’s ability to control the information they share about themselves and with whom.”

Privacy as a general principle is important because it protects our ability to explore ideas and be in control of what we share about ourselves with others. What we share with others can vary widely from talking with a close friend to posting on social media to consulting with a lawyer or a therapist. Understanding and trusting the context of each scenario we encounter is crucial for each of us to navigate our lives well since a breach of that trust can have significant consequences.

Ideas we have or would like to explore are almost certainly controversial to someone in our family, friend groups or society and without the ability to move through them freely we limit our possibilities to grow as individuals and as a collective. Controlling the information we share helps us structure our lives and limits the potential for outside entities to influence or manipulate our decisions.

Why is private shopping important?

When we look specifically at how we buy and sell things online today a number of troubling things are going on. The marketplaces we use routinely are all run by centralized entities that monitor and collect all of the data we generate when using their platforms.

Risks to buyers

The risks to buyers are numerous. These companies know everything from your real identity and your payment information to your entire purchase history and every link you click. These things in aggregate give them an alarming amount of information about every individual who uses their platform that they can use to manipulate your activities and maximize their bottom line.

• Do you know about dark patterns and how they are designed to manipulate your behavior?
• What about how our data can help retailers predict important and private things like if someone is pregnant?
• Stepping adjacent to retail in the credit industry, what about how penalties can result for you because of data other people have generated?

In the future, activities happening within these systems may also be subject to much larger aspects of access and control in places like China where your behavior may significantly impact your future purchasing opportunities and even your civil rights.

Risks to sellers

Risks to sellers can be even worse than for buyers. For sellers, they may earn their living selling on platforms like these and search algorithm changes, promoting their products before yours or copying popular products can impact or stop their income at any time.

A new way to shop and sell

The Haven app presents a whole new paradigm for ecommerce: private shopping. It’s built on the decentralized OpenBazaar network which means that there is no centralized entity-like Amazon, Ebay or Alibaba-who owns it. This is possible because, instead of using centrally owned and operated servers to run the network and host all data generated by it, the OpenBazaar network is made up of individual people who host data on their own devices and connect directly to each other.

This means that users have direct control over their store and profile and they don’t need to worry about anyone taking it away or collecting their data to manipulate their behavior or interfere with their income stream.

Haven lets us take a huge step away from the way we have gotten used to using the internet-which has literally cost us our identities.

Would you like to take your privacy back online?
Get started today by downloading Haven for iOS and Android here!

Originally published at https://gethaven.app on October 25, 2019.

Why You Need Privacy When You Shop And Sell Online was originally published in gethaven on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In its first 80 days Haven has now been installed more than 25,000 times! We’re excited to watch as the Haven community — and private ecommerce — continues to grow.

Countries:

• Since launch, Haven has been used in 183 different countries.
• The United States, Venezuela, and Iraq are the countries with the most users.

Platform split: Other Stats

• There have been more than 2,400 posts made in the Haven social feed so far.
• Listings have been added to users’ wishlists more than 1,500 times.

Upcoming releases

Even more features will be introduced into Haven soon:

• Haven app-to-app push notifications for chat, social, and order activities
• A massive social update that will introduce a personalized feed, instant updates, social notifications, and lay the groundwork for topic channels
• Ethereum integration that will allow for ETH and ERC-20 token payment support

What features would you like to see in Haven?
Tell us about it in Slack and on Telegram and Twitter.

Originally published at https://gethaven.app on October 17, 2019.

Haven Hits 25,000 Installs was originally published in gethaven on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Being able to sell online is one of the most important activities the internet has enabled. From big box retailers down to individuals, the internet has made it easier than any other time in history to for people around the world to participate in trade.

If you are wondering how to sell stuff online, there are now many tools and ecommerce platforms that can help you get started with any size operation.

• Do you want to know how to sell gently used clothing online?
• Do you want to sell your services like lawn care or legal counsel?
• Do you want to sell digital goods like ebooks or music?
• Do you want to sell handmade goods or a custom product you designed?
• Do you want to sell items you purchase from a manufacturer or have them dropshipped?

There is likely a solution already out there for you. You just have to know how to find it!

How to choose an ecommerce platform

The most important things to note about an ecommerce platform are how it works and how that translates into costs for you. Whether it’s time, money, and/or ultimate ownership rights, every ecommerce platform will require some payment from you. You will need to decide what is most important to you when you’re selling.

• Is it monetary cost?
• Is it convenience?
• Is it the ability to reach a specific niche?
• Is it complete creative control?

Answering these questions will help you determine what kind of platform you should use to sell.

What is an ecommerce platform?

An ecommerce platform as a website and/or application that provides you with a place to list an item or items and complete transactions. This does not include platforms like Craigslist that focus on local connections and only facilitate connecting buyers and sellers-not their payments.

What types of ecommerce platforms are there?

There are two major categories that ecommerce platforms fall into: marketplaces and individual web store providers.

Ecommerce marketplace platforms

Marketplace platforms are those like Amazon, Ebay and Alibaba. They are primarily focused on bringing lots of individual sellers together with buyers and do not necessarily hold their own stock. (But they may down the line, like Amazon does now. This also poses direct competition to their third-party vendors. Beware of this!) They work kind of like a mall where retailers lease storefronts on their property. Unlike a mall though, end users primarily have the experience of buying from Amazon, Ebay or Alibaba, not the individual stores. These platforms also have their own powerful internal search components so people can quickly find what they are looking for without having to visit each individual retailer.

• Pros: Higher traffic due to platform brand recognition, convenience
• Cons: Can be expensive in both time and money to keep up with, your individual brand is nearly invisible, the big-name platform calls all the shots and may harm your company someday by changing algorithms or aggressively competing with your product

Who do marketplace platforms benefit?

Marketplace platforms are most beneficial if you are a volume-based seller or someone who sells common, sought-after products that you can price and place competitively to sell larger quantities.

Individual web store providers

Platforms that empower individuals to build their own separate website, business and brand are those like Shopify, Squarespace, Magento and WordPress. You can set up your own ecommerce-enabled website with a secure checkout experience. You have more control over developing your store and brand but also take on the responsibility of driving all of your own marketing and growing your own customer base.

• Pros: More control, fewer costs for things like listing fees and sales cuts
• Cons: Can take some time & knowledge to set up, can still have costs that add up, all traffic to your store depends on your marketing

Who do individual web stores benefit?

You would choose from these platforms if you are seeking to build a business where you have more control of your brand presentation and scale and you can build direct relationships with your buyers to encourage repeat business.

Hybrid platforms

Sites like Etsy and Haven offer more of a hybrid model where sellers benefit from an easy and uniform shop setup experience and the possibility of discovery from internal search but they also have an opportunity to build a user base with some loyalty specifically to them-not just the platform.

• Pros: Easy setup, exposure to marketplace traffic from search, more visibility is given to your individual store so you can still build direct relationships with buyers
• Cons: Less control over your brand and store than on an individual web store, more responsibility to do more of your own marketing for better results
• Pro/Con: Generally more niche so users of these platforms have more specific values and goals than broader networks

Who do hybrid platforms benefit?

You would choose from these platforms if you want to get started selling quickly in a place where you can also build more direct relationships with your buyers & encourage repeat purchases.

What kind of shopping app is Haven?

The Haven app is a private shopping app that enables you to shop, chat, and send cryptocurrencies from your iOS or Android mobile device. It’s a hybrid platform where you can get the simplest store setup on the planet and 0 fees and a supportive, niche community.

In this special cryptocurrency marketplace you can build relationships directly with buyers and sellers around the world who share your values of privacy and building the future of money together.

Learn more by joining us on Slack and on Telegram and Twitter!

Do you already know what you are going to sell online with Haven? 👐Download for iOS and Android here!

Originally published at https://gethaven.app on October 10, 2019.

What’s The Best Place to Sell Stuff Online? was originally published in gethaven on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

For people who want to protect their privacy, there’s some good news and some bad news when it comes to using your mobile device.

Bad news first: Mobile devices are notoriously bad for privacy. By default, they collect all kinds of information about their users and share it with mobile carriers, app developers, Google, Apple, and other third parties. Everything from location information to audio recordings can be captured by the computer in your pocket, and in most cases the default settings for the Android and iOS operating systems don’t care too much about your privacy.

Fortunately, there is good news too. First, you can change some settings to better protect your privacy. You can avoid linking your phone to existing accounts, or avoid installing some apps altogether. You can also install apps that help you maintain your privacy. You’ll never be perfectly private using a mobile device, but you can minimize the amount of data you’re generating and the number of people you’re sharing it with.

We’ve put together a list of five apps which help you protect your privacy.

Signal

Apple App Store or Google Play

Signal is a messaging app. For secure communications, Signal is the messaging app. It has a well-established track record and is open source.

Signal uses end-to-end encryption, which means that only the intended participants in the conversation are able to read the messages.

To use it requires a phone number. This is the only privacy downside to using Signal, since to use it with others you need to know their phone numbers.

It supports text, audio, and video as well. All of them are encrypted.

You can still send messages to others who haven’t installed Signal, they just won’t be encrypted, but this makes switching to Signal simple since you can keep sending SMS messages just as before. Then use peer pressure to get them using Signal too!

DuckDuckGo

Apple App Store or Google Play

DuckDuckGo (DDG) is a search engine. Its primary focus is on protecting user privacy. They don’t track users, unlike the most popular search engines.

Their app isn’t only a search engine though, it’s an entire browser. Naturally it uses the DDG search engine, and you can browse the web just like any other browser. It automatically blocks trackers while you’re browsing.

It prominently features a fire icon at the top of the browser, and at any point if you tap that icon it will immediately forget all the tabs and data from your browsing session.

Note that even though “burning” that data will remove it from your device, it doesn’t mean that your ISP or carrier can’t see your web activity. For that, you need other apps, such as the Tor browser.

Tor Browser

Apple App Store (The Tor Project doesn’t have an official iOS app, this is a community made app) or Google Play

Tor is a network which allows people to connect to the internet anonymously. The Tor Browser App is a browser which only connects through the Tor network. This means that the sites you’re visiting don’t see your IP address, which can be connected to your identity. It also means that your ISP or carrier won’t see what websites you’re visiting on your phone.

Using Tor is good for privacy, though there is a catch. For one thing, it’s slower than using a normal browser. To use Tor, the information you’re sending and receiving is being sent through multiple hops and with multiple layers of encryption. This slows things down a bit. Also, some people have taken advantage of the Tor network to do nefarious things with their anonymity, and because of that some websites and services won’t work properly if you’re connecting via Tor.

Despite these drawbacks, there is no more private method to browse the web on a mobile device than using the Tor browser.

VPN Apps

What if you want privacy while using an app, but not visiting a website itself? DDG or Tor browser won’t help you there. You can route all traffic on your phone over Tor, but that’s a bit complicated to achieve. Instead, you can use a virtual private network (VPN).

A VPN connects you to another network first before you connect to the internet. That means that the app you’re using — or anyone watching your connection — will see your IP address as coming from the VPN, not your own device. A good VPN will also not be blacklisted, as Tor use often is.

There is a drawback to using a VPN though. You are trusting the VPN provider entirely! If they are keeping logs of your connection, then your activity is being monitored and can be viewed by anyone they share those logs with.

It’s important to choose a VPN provider you trust. Free VPNs are almost always a bad idea. Check what the provider says about keeping logs, and if they have a good reputation. There are many VPN apps available; do your research to find what works best for you.

Haven

Apple App Store or Google Play

Haven is the most private ecommerce application. It stores data locally, ensuring no one else has access to your information. It uses end-to-end encryption, so that your messages and transactions can only be seen by the people involved in the trade. It uses cryptocurrency so that you aren’t forced to use a bank account or other payment method tied to your identity.

Haven is built on top of OpenBazaar, an open source, peer-to-peer marketplace where people connect directly to each other to buy and sell goods and services. Because there are no middlemen, users pay no fees, there’s no censorship, and people can protect their privacy.

You can learn more about Haven privacy by reading this article.

What else?

There are other apps available that help with your privacy. Which apps are missing from this list? What tips do you have to improve privacy on your mobile device? Tell us about it in Slack and on Telegram and Twitter.

Want to get your hands on Haven? 👐
Download for iOS and Android here!

Originally published at https://gethaven.app on September 26, 2019.

5 Apps to Increase Your Privacy on Your Smartphone was originally published in gethaven on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Haven has had an incredible first 50 days in the Apple App Store and Google Play! It has achieved 10,000 installs and we are very happy about the adoption we are seeing.

Platform split: Top countries:

• iOS: United States, United Kingdom, Canada
• Android: Venezuela, United States, India

Top referral sources:

• iOS: Within other iOS apps, Apple App Store search
• Android: Google Play search results, third party links

Newest features

Haven has had two updates since launch ( 1.2.3 and 1.2.4) that included upgraded link sharing features, enhanced category structures and a foundation for push notifications.

Upcoming releases

The next few releases are also going to pack in the feature updates. Here’s what to expect:

• Haven app-to-app push notifications for chat, social, and order activities
• A massive social update that will introduce a personalised feed, instant updates, social notifications, and lay the groundwork for topic channels
• Ethereum integration that will allow for ETH and ERC-20 token payment support

Private shopping for everyone, everywhere

We are excited to hit this milestone but we aren’t slowing down. We are working hard every day to push this app and its underlying technology to the limit so you can have an incredible private experience buying and selling goods and services worldwide with no middlemen to charge you fees or collect your data. We appreciate how many of you are already helping us carry out the mission of enabling private trade around the world. Help us continue by sharing the app with anyone you know who shares these values!

What features would you like to see in Haven?
Tell us about it in Slack and on Telegram and Twitter.

Originally published at https://gethaven.app on September 23, 2019.

Haven Hits 10,000 Installs was originally published in gethaven on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When someone says “cryptocurrency marketplace” they generally mean one of two things:

1. A place where you buy, sell or trade cryptocurrencies
2. A place where you buy and sell goods and services using cryptocurrencies

Buying and selling cryptocurrencies

Technically, a marketplace where you buy and sell cryptocurrencies is called an exchange. Some exchanges let you buy and sell coins using your bank account or a credit card, some only allow crypto-to-crypto purchases, and some take an unusual route like Paxful which lets you purchase cryptocurrency with whatever you may have on hand from crypto to gift cards to physical cash.

They each have different pros and cons from countries of availability to currencies supported to how much personal information they require from you. Choosing the right exchange for you is a matter of availability in your area and alignment with your values.

What exchanges value privacy?

Many exchanges that let you use a bank account or credit card require quite a bit of additional identifying information for you to transact. For this reason the method we generally recommend for getting cryptocurrency is to earn your coins by selling goods or services in a marketplace like Haven. However, we know sometimes simply buying crypto with national currencies (fiat currencies) or trading coins for other coins is preferred.

Here are a few resources explaining ways to do this without giving up too much of your private information:

• Bisq, a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange

Bitcoin-specific

• Buying and Using Bitcoin Anonymously / Without ID
• Using a P2P exchange called HodlHodl

Buying and selling goods and services using cryptocurrencies

Okay, so what about a marketplace where you can shop and sell like you would on other well known marketplaces like Amazon, Ebay, Alibaba or Etsy?

Haven is a marketplace where you can buy and sell goods and services with cryptocurrency. Haven currently supports buying and selling with Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and Zcash with Ethereum coming soon and additional coins being explored.

What would you like to buy or sell on Haven with cryptocurrency?

• Collectible items? 👉 See some
• Original art? 👉 Get it
• Gift cards? 👉 You need ‘em
• Gently used computer parts? 👉 About time
• Translation services? 👉 是

Start your browsing in less than a minute and sellers can get set up in about 3! Check out this quick start guide to setting up your own store on Haven.

Ready to get your hands on it?
Download for iOS and Android here!

Originally published at gethaven.app on September 20, 2019.

What Is a Cryptocurrency Marketplace? was originally published in gethaven on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Cryptocurrencies are digital currencies that are generated by computing and can be used as a store of value and a medium of exchange, much like cash. It’s a contraction of “cryptographic currency” which means that it uses cryptography — a branch of mathematics devoted to securing communications — to keep it secure.

Cryptocurrencies are created, spent and received using a network of computers around the world that work together to maintain a public record of these transactions. The transactions are then entered into a data structure called a blockchain.

What’s a Blockchain?

Bitcoin was released in 2009 and is the largest and oldest example of a cryptocurrency produced with a blockchain. A blockchain contains “blocks” of transactions that follow certain rules to ensure the transactions are legitimate, and those transactions are bundled together. Blocks are then connected together on the network to form a “chain” of transactions extending backwards chronologically to the first transaction ever made with that cryptocurrency.

Consider your bank statement.

Each month you see all the transactions and amounts — both deposits and withdrawals — tracked by your bank. This type of record-keeping is called a ledger. If you tried to spend more money than you had in your account, the bank wouldn’t allow it, since they would look at the ledger and realize you don’t own enough money for the transaction.

That ledger is completely controlled by your bank, which requires you to trust them completely, while giving them a lot of personal information. A blockchain is a way to transfer value digitally without needing to trust in a bank, or any institution. This is possible because there is still a ledger keeping track of deposits and withdrawals, but this ledger is distributed across all the people in the network.

Each time you try to send a transaction, everyone else is verifying you have the money you say you do.

Unlike the bank records or manual ledgers someone may keep, once transactions are validated and entered into a blockchain it’s almost impossible to change them. No one can bake a blockchain’s books!

It requires energy for computers to verify these transactions are legitimate. Why would people devote their computers to doing this? Because when they do this verification they are entering these new transactions into the blockchain in a process called mining which will occasionally reward them by giving them new coins. This is how new coins are created in the system, which provides an incentive for there to always be people verifying transactions. Miners may also choose to collect transaction fees as a part of this process to increase their incentive.

All of this transaction information is public and able to be viewed by anyone. If that sounds a little scary, don’t worry. It’s not like your bank statements being made public, because those are tied directly to your specific real-world identity and could lead to someone else taking control of your account and spending your money. Some cryptocurrencies are more private than others, but most of them aren’t tied directly to your identity like a credit card.

All of this transaction information is public and able to be viewed by anyone. If that sounds a little scary, don’t worry. It’s not like your bank statements being made public, because those are tied directly to your specific real-world identity. Some cryptocurrencies are more private than others, but most of them aren’t tied directly to your identity like a credit card.

How can transactions be public but not reveal my identity?

Even though it’s digital, cryptocurrency use works much like cash. You don’t need to let someone know your name or account number number to give them cash for something. It’s assumed that, because you have the cash to give in the first place, you “own” that cash and have the authority to use it.

What do I really “own” when I own cryptocurrency?

You own cryptographic keys that work together to prove your ownership of coins in a certain location on the blockchain.

Your public key is an alphanumeric string that creates an address which is publicly visible and connected to your transactions on the blockchain. Every time you send or receive coins using these keys that is a transaction.

Your private key is also a long, alphanumeric string that is generated before your public key and it is very important to keep it safe. It does important work behind the scenes to prove your ownership of your coins and let you use them. They’re a bit like your signature on your checks.

This is much more secure than writing a check to someone or handing them your credit card, though! With checks and credit cards, whomever you’re interacting with can see your entire account number & verification points — like your CCV or your signature — printed right on them, which makes it pretty easy for a crook to rip off or forge.

How do I get and manage cryptocurrency keys?

Many people get their first cryptocurrency by using their national currency to purchase them from another person or an exchange like Coinbase. With an exchange you will get some convenience features but there are fees attached to this kind of transaction and it has implications for your privacy since they require you to give them a lot of your personal information.

The way we recommend getting cryptocurrency is to earn some by selling items or services privately on Haven!

To manage your cryptocurrency, there is software that is simply and appropriately called wallets where people can store their keys and do additional things easily, like see the balance of coins they have, send and receive payments, and keep their coins safe.

Most wallets make keeping your keys safe a little easier by generating a seed phrase you can use to restore your data in case of a technical issue or to easily move your keys to other wallets. This seed is generally a list of words that is much easier to write down and verify than the dozens of numbers and letters that make up the keys.

Haven includes an integrated multicoin wallet and you can back up the wallet by writing down your seed phrase in Settings. Under Advanced tap Backup to get started.

How do I send and receive cryptocurrencies?

A public key that was properly derived from a private key can be used to generate an address which can be shared with others for sending and receiving coins. This is another thing wallets help you with. This address can also be translated into a QR code that is easy to scan with a mobile device to send funds to it.

I want to know more!

There’s definitely a lot more going on under the hood of cryptocurrencies and the technology is novel and fascinating. If you’d like to learn more about how blockchains work technically check out these resources:

• Jameson Lopp as built this incredible library of information about Bitcoin
• Coin Center exploring the difference between Bitcoin and Facebook’s Libra coin
• From the Haven blog: How Private Will Facebook’s Libra Currency Be?

And of course, please stay connected to the Haven blog as we will be continuing to share more information about cryptocurrencies. Please bring any questions you have to our communities around the web! Find us on Slack, Telegram and Twitter.

Ready to get your hands on Haven?
Download for iOS and Android here!

Originally published at gethaven.app on September 13, 2019.

What Is Cryptocurrency? A Complete Beginner’s Guide was originally published in gethaven on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Protecting our privacy online is important. Our identity and data can be abused if it gets into the hands of the wrong people. More people than ever before are taking steps to guard their privacy online, but there’s one activity that seems stubbornly hostile to user’s privacy: selling goods and services.

Generally, people still must throw all of that desire for privacy out the door in order to use the majority of the platforms available to make money. Is it just the necessary evil of ecommerce? Does it have to be this way?

Is it even possible to sell goods or services online privately?

What if it’s possible to sell things online without giving any personal information like your real name, your phone number, your street address, or your banking information? Sam Patterson, Chief Privacy Officer of OB1, checks out some of the top ecommerce platforms like Ebay, Etsy, Amazon, Shopify, and Craigslist to find out.

Ready to get your hands on Haven?

Download for iOS and Android here!

Originally published at https://gethaven.app on September 6, 2019.

The Anonymous Ecommerce Challenge — Can You Sell Online Privately? was originally published in gethaven on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Haven is designed to be incredibly easy to use. Not just easy for a cryptocurrency marketplace but for any online marketplace. It’s easier and faster to get set up on Haven than on any other shopping platform you know like Amazon, Etsy, Ebay, Alibaba or Shopify.

Sellers can then get their store set up and an item listed for sale in just a few minutes more!

How to Get Haven

First, install download the app from the Apple App Store or Google Play.

When you open the app you will see two screens. The first one asks for your store name, country and display currency that you’d prefer as well as an option to opt in to analytics tracking. The second is a privacy notice.

Start by entering a descriptive & enticing store name. Then your country which can be especially important if you are selling physical goods. Buyers around the world want to know what to expect with shipping times and costs and if they’ll have to deal with something like paying VAT upon receipt. Next you can select your most familiar currency to display prices within the app. Analytics tracking is optional but by opting in to the completely anonymized tracking you will help us be able to make Haven better all the time while still maintaining your privacy. No one is accessing your private information or coming after you with ads!

Then you’ll review the privacy notice and land on the product discovery screen.

Now you can make sure your store looks great before you create your first listing!

How to Design Your Haven Store

Bonus points for linking Haven and your web store together so that people can easily determine your ownership of both! You can do this by adding your Haven store link to a page on your website.

The Bio is a short snippet that shows up on your profile page beneath your reviews and follower/following count. The About section shows up in the About tab of your profile and can be longer. Use the Bio to help users learn right away what you sell and how you can help them and use the longer About section to tell your story, talk about your history, share deals and offers and add any additional information you think is important for your buyers to know.

Tap save to end up back on your profile screen.

Everything look good? You’re ready to create your first listing!

Your Haven Store Settings

In your Me tab, tap the gear icon for Settings.

In Settings you will see a Store section. Here you can manage your:

• Store policies such as return policies and terms and conditions. You can set these up however you’d like or however is necessary for your business. You may want to say no refunds if the price point is very low on the item or perhaps offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee with a full refund option.
• Moderators for your listings. Moderated payments are set by default in Haven for payment protection. Here you can review and select the OB1 Verified Moderator(s) you like best to add them to your listings to protect both your and your buyers’ payments. If you add multiple Moderators then your buyers can also have a choice to review and select the one they also like and trust the most to help protect their payment when they make a purchase. Read more about how payment protection works in our FAQ here.
• The cryptocurrencies you’d like to accept as payment. Choose from Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and Zcash. Select as many or as few as you’d like!

When these are each complete to your liking tap Save in the top right corner, then the back arrow in the top left corner to back out.

Tap the back arrow at the top left again to back out of Settings.

How to Add a Listing in Haven

Tap the green + at the center bottom of the app and select Sell. You can also tap Create listing on your profile page under your Store tab.

Add as many high quality photos as you can of the listing to give buyers a good sense of your item or service.

Select the type of good it is: Physical Good, Service or Digital Good (Android only at the moment).

Give it a short, clear title that contains keywords that people are likely to use in search.

Enter the price and condition (if applicable) and then a great description.

Mark it as adult content if it is a listing intended for users who are age 18+ so that it gets categorized appropriately. If a mature item is not appropriately labeled your entire store may bet flagged for removal from search.

Complete the shipping information (if applicable) according to the service you use to ship your items and how much they charge. Or, you can keep it simple and add shipping costs to your item cost and leave it set to Free Shipping.

Tags are optional but they can be added to boost the searchability of your item. Include obvious ones that relate to the item itself but that are not in the title or description like “clothing” or “fashion.”

Advanced includes areas where you can add information about variants (such as color varieties available) & inventory counts, store policies and/or coupons you’d like to create and share, as applicable.

When everything looks great, tap the green Save button in the lower right corner. You’re done!

Viewing Your Haven Listing

Listings may take a bit to populate fully across the peer-to-peer OpenBazaar network on which Haven is built. There may also be a delay for it to start showing up in search but you can see your listing in your store & share the direct link to it right away.

The search within Haven is a helpful feature but because of the peer-to-peer network it’s not exactly like the search functions in other marketplaces. It is still growing and evolving all the time so we don’t recommend expecting search to be the cornerstone of your sales. Just like with any other ecommerce marketplace, the most successful sellers also do their own promotional work to bring in buyers and encourage repeat purchases.

Make sure to market your store and listings by sharing them in the social feed in Haven and around the web outside of the app, too!

Ready to get your hands on Haven?

Download for iOS and Android at gethaven.app!

Originally published at https://gethaven.app on August 30, 2019.

How To Quickly and Easily Set Up a Store in Haven was originally published in gethaven on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.