Marketplaces need (at minimum) two types of users: supply and demand. Sometimes, it’s beneficial to offer users in these two groups different onboarding and user experiences. Sharetribe’s user type feature helps you do just that.
In this tutorial, we’ll create two user groups: providers and customers. Since we’re building a peer-to-peer rental marketplace for bikes, the user groups will be called bike owners and customers. Follow along with this tutorial or adjust your user types based on your specific needs.
Default user types
Navigate to Users > User types in Console.
Depending on your answers to the setup wizard, you may already have default user types. User types are populated based on the answer to the question, “Are you building a P2P, B2C, or B2B marketplace?” If you notice that these ready-made user types suit your marketplace, we encourage you to keep them as is! Still, following this tutorial will still give you a better understanding of the user type functionality.
Here’s a brief description of the default assets for each different answer in the setup wizard. You can modify all of these settings to match your needs more accurately.
P2P marketplace (peer-to-peer)
Your marketplace does not have predetermined user types. You can add user types at any time.
B2C marketplace (business-to-consumer)
Your marketplace has two user types: a provider and a customer. The provider user type has the fields display name and phone number enabled in the signup form to support business users specifically. The display name functions as a field for the business’s name.
B2B marketplace (business-to-business)
Your marketplace has two user types: a provider and a customer. Both of these user types are set up to primarily support business users. They have the display name field enabled to support asking for a business name, and phone number field as well.
Several of the above, or I’m not sure
You have the B2C user type setup so that you can see the most variety in different settings.
Add a provider user type
We’ll start by adding a user type for providers. Click “+ Add a new user type” in the user type settings.
Provider user type name
We want to make the language on our marketplace as specific as possible. Provider is a generic term for supply in service and rental providers, but since we’re renting bikes, we’ll call the providers on Biketribe bike owners. Anyone signing up for your marketplace will see this name in the user type dropdown if you have more than one user type.
Type in Bike owner.
Provider user type ID
The user type ID is a unique identifier of the user type. It can't contain spaces, and should only consist of letters, numbers, dashes (-), or underscores (_).
Type in bike-owner.
Default user fields
Every time you create a user type, it automatically includes the following default user fields:
Email address
Password
First name
Last name
Display name
Bio
Profile picture
Phone number
Payout details
Payment methods
Most of these default user fields are integral to the marketplace and can’t be disabled, with two exceptions.
You can enable or disable the display name and phone number fields. For our bike owners on Biketribe, we’ll enable a display name and a phone number to make it possible for bike rental shops to register for the marketplace. These businesses might want to add a business name (display name) instead of a personal name to the profile.
Enable the fields Display name and Phone number.
Below the default field selection, you can adjust the display name and phone number fields.
Display name settings
The display name field should be added to the sign-up form, so choose that option. Since Biketribe is also for individual renters, we will not make it mandatory. People who want to use a business name can add one, but it’s not a must.
Enable Add this field to the sign-up form.
Disable Make this field mandatory.
Phone number settings
We’ll add the phone number field to the signup form but make it non-mandatory. While it can be useful to have users’ phone numbers, remember that any friction during signup can lead to people abandoning the signup form. Still, if you have a good reason to mandate a phone number, such as sending SMS notifications about important events, the additional friction may be worth it.
Enable Add this field to the sign-up form.
Disable Make this field mandatory.
Phone numbers collected in the phone number field are protected data. This means that only the marketplace operator and the user themself can view them. If you want to add a public phone number field, you can disable the dedicated phone number field and create a custom user field for phone numbers instead.
Add a customer user type
For customers, signing up will be slightly simpler. Click to add another user type, and fill in the following information:
User type name: Customer
User type ID: customer
Default fields:
Disable display name
Enable phone number
Phone number settings:
Enable Add this field to the sign-up form
Disable Make this field mandatory
And save changes!
Next: Add custom user fields
Your marketplace now has two user types, one for bike owners and another for customers. In practice, a peer-to-peer marketplace does not always need user types since many users will be transacting on the marketplace as both providers and customers. But for a B2C and B2B marketplace, user types can be extremely impactful in offering tailored experiences for different kinds of users.
Speaking of tailored experiences, our next step is about creating custom user fields. These fields let you collect specific, unique information about your users during sign up and in user profiles.