Your Questions About Luma Market, Answered

Who we are, where we are, and why we’re doing this

"Who are you? What is your experience? Where are you based?" We’re Laura and David, two developers based in Stockport, and we’ve built Luma ourselves. There’s more about both of us on the about page.

"Are you backed by any big brand? How are you funded?" There is no brand behind us and no investors. We fund Luma ourselves, which means nobody is pushing us to grow fast at your expense. Luma Market Ltd is a UK company, and at the moment it’s just the two of us.

"What is the main goal for Luma?" A UK marketplace where every single thing for sale was made by the person selling it, and where both makers and shoppers can trust that without checking.

What it costs

"How much will you be charging? What’s the fee structure, and how many listings do I get for that?" We take 7% when something sells, charged on the item and the postage together. No listing fee, no monthly subscription, no charge to open a shop. You can have up to 10 listings live at once. Platform fees explained has a worked example with real numbers, including the payment processing fee below.

"What payment platform do you use, and what does it charge?" Payments run through our payment provider (Stripe). When a shopper pays, the money goes into your own account with them, the processing fee and our commission come off, and the rest is yours. You never invoice anyone and there’s nothing to work out by hand. The payment provider’s own fee is separate from ours, and the fees article above sets it out so you can see your real take-home.

"How will I get paid?" Several of you asked this in different ways: when the money arrives, whether you have to ask for it, and what happens if a shopper sends something back.

The money from a sale goes into your own account with the payment provider, and it’s held until your shopper confirms the order arrived. That way a refund comes out of money still sitting in your balance. If nobody confirms, we mark the order delivered after 14 days and release the money 7 days after that.

Once it’s released, it goes to your bank automatically, monthly, on the 1st, or you can take it early once a month from £5.00.

When you get paid walks one order through end to end, including what happens if a refund arrives after you’ve been paid.

"How would you help with pricing, and whether there’s demand for what I make?" We can’t price your work for you. What we can do is show you what’s happening in your own shop, and shop analytics are on their way: views, favourites, which listings get looked at and which get bought. Once Luma is a bit more established we will be able to recommend what similar pieces have sold for, to give you some idea.

Who can sell here, and where you can sell to

"Is it UK only, or will it be easy to sell to Europe? What about the USA?" UK only, for now. You need to be based in the UK to open a shop, Northern Ireland included. Orders go to England, Scotland and Wales for the moment, so shoppers need a delivery address there. The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man sit outside all of it, sadly, because they aren’t part of the UK.

"You say you don’t want mass produced, but are you ok with printed items from original artwork?" Yes, if you handle the physical item. Print your own artwork yourself, or have a studio print it and then store, check and post each one, and it’s welcome. The moment a service prints and posts on your behalf without you touching the print, that’s print-on-demand and it isn’t. The artwork has to be yours, and it can’t be AI-generated. We ask that your prints be signed or stamped by you on top, this helps protect Luma from mass production and also give a personal touch to your shopper. What counts as handmade sets out the line, including the grey areas.

"Items can still be genuinely handmade even if the graphics or images used were created with AI. What’s Luma’s stance?" The making can be genuine and the design on it still isn’t yours. A prompt describes a picture and the AI draws it, much like briefing an illustrator. So an AI image printed on, transferred onto or built into the piece can’t be sold here as your own work. A hand-printed card carrying one is a handmade card with a picture you didn’t make on it.

AI as a tool is fine. If it sparks an idea, or gives you something to paint, carve or stitch from the way a reference photo would, what you make is yours.

Photos of your work are stricter. Each one has to show the real piece, the making or your workspace, with no AI backgrounds, generative fill or upscaling. Cropping, fixing the light and whatever your phone does on its own are fine.

Keeping the mass-produced stuff out

"What will you do to keep mass producers and dropshippers out?" Before a shop opens, one of us reads how the maker says they work and looks at their photos of the making. The admission process is done by hand, and we’ll do it that way for as long as we can. Every listing then has to carry a process description before it can go live, and shoppers can read it. And anyone with an account, maker or shopper, can report a listing they think isn’t what it claims. A person reads every report. How Luma verifies handmade listings is the full walkthrough, including where it still relies on people.

Getting shoppers to your work

"How would you market the site to attract buyers? How will products be advertised?"

Search. This is where being two developers helps. We’ve put the time into the fundamentals, so every listing is built to be found on Google and in AI chats like ChatGPT as well as on Luma: clean titles and descriptions, structured data that tells a search engine exactly what you’re selling. Once the doors open, publishing a listing tells the search engines straight away.

Further ahead, we’re looking at Google Shopping and Pinterest’s shopping tools, so your work can turn up where people are already browsing to buy.

Content. Posts like this one, gift guides, pieces on what handmade means and why it’s worth paying for. Each one is written to bring in someone who’s already looking for what you make.

Social. We’re on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and Pinterest, and we’ll feature makers’ work there with credit and a link to the shop.

You. This is the one makers sometimes don’t want to hear. Your existing followers are the surest early traffic any new marketplace has.

Support

"Will there be contactable humans? Will you provide ongoing communication?" Yes, the humans are us! Every message through the contact page is read by me or David, the people who built the thing you’re asking about.

Where things are now

"How will the launch actually work?" In two stages, makers first, and the first stage is open now.

Makers can apply, build their shops and list their work today. Take your time over it: photos, process descriptions, postage, the lot. Shoppers can’t see any of it yet, so there’s no rush to be perfect on day one.

When there is enough to browse in a couple weeks, the doors then open to shoppers and we email everyone who’s signed up.

So if you’re a maker, the useful thing to do this month is get your shop ready. If you’re a shopper, create an account and we’ll email you when there’s something to buy.

If your question wasn’t here, it was probably one we’re still working on, and we’d still like to hear it. Ask us. If your question was here and the answer was enough, come and open your shop.