Time zones are part of listing availability and bookings on your marketplace. Providers specify their time zones when adding their availability during listing creation or editing. Customers will see the available times in the provider's time zone on the listing. Both customers and providers will also see all booking information in the provider's time zone on their order page and in notifications.
This article explains how time zones are handled in Sharetribe's no-code version, and what you (and your users) should take into consideration when dealing with them.
How time zone is set and displayed on the listing page
Providers set the time zone when setting their listing's availability schedule. The time zone is set for each listing that the provider creates.
Customers viewing the listing will see available times in the provider's time zone. No conversion takes place automatically.
The booking panel displays the times in the provider's time zone.
How bookings work with time zones
All the times related to a booking are shown in the listing's time zone to all users.
On the marketplace, the order page displays booking times in the listing's time zone to customers and providers.
Notification emails sent as part of the booking display times in the listing's time zone. This includes notifications such as booking requests sent to providers or confirmations sent to both users.
How bookings are shown in Console
Console's Transactions gives an admin view of the transactions taking place in your marketplace. It includes information about the booking period.
Console displays booked times (and all times) in the operator's time zone. The booking period, which is stored in the provider's time zone, is converted and displayed to the operator's time zone. The operator's time zone is determined by the system settings of the device.
How filtering works with time zones
The short answer is that you do not need to worry about this: when searching for listings, the back end does an expanded search which ensures the listings in different time zones are returned.
So if a listing occurs on January 5th at 11 PM in local time, that will always be displayed when a customer is filtering for listings that occur on January 5th, regardless of what time zone was set by the listing creator.
When and how to communicate time zone
Since the time zone always displays in the provider's set time zone, you may want to make the provider's time zone explicitly clear to reduce the risk of missed bookings due to time zone confusion.
This is especially true for marketplaces that host online events, meetings, or services that happen at a specific time but can have participants from multiple time zones.
Listing content: Providers can communicate their time zone explicitly when creating the listing. Time zone can be mentioned in the default description field or you can create custom listing field for time zone.
Direct messages: When communicating with customers in a transaction conversation thread, providers can reiterate the time zone of the booking in a message.
Provide support: Be ready to assist users with any time zone related questions or issues they might encounter. You may also consider incorporating this information in the welcome email and/or the 'How it works' / 'About' pages.
Learn more
By understanding how Sharetribe handles time zones and implementing best practices, you can minimize confusion, which improves your marketplace users’ experience.
You can better understand time zones by reviewing the context of the user experience where they are used.
If you have any questions or need further assistance, feel free to contact our support team. We’ll be happy to help you further!