Your cart, one-click checkout, and statement descriptors
How carts work on The Painted Porch, why every vendor checks out separately, and how to recognize the charge on your card statement.
How checkout works on The Painted Porch
One cart per maker
When you add items from Jane's shop to your cart, that's Jane's cart. When you add items from Tom's shop, that's a separate cart. They don't combine. This is on purpose — Jane ships differently than Tom, Jane's porch pickup is different, and mixing them would be a mess.
From your cart page you'll see them grouped by maker, each with its own "Check out" button.
Checkout once per maker
You check out Jane's cart with Jane's shipping options, Jane's porch hours, Jane's price. Then you check out Tom's cart. Two receipts, two transactions, but two neighbors instead of one warehouse — that's the deal.
Recognize the charge on your statement
Every transaction on The Painted Porch shows up on your card statement with a recognizable name:
PORCH JANES POTTERY* TPP ORD 4827 — $40.00
That means: Jane's Pottery, order number 4827, charged $40.00 through The Painted Porch. If you don't recognize it, log into your account at thepaintedporch.shop/account/orders and search the order number — we show the same descriptor there.
This is different from just "JANES POTTERY" or "Stripe" or some random abbreviation. The PORCH prefix makes it clear it came through us; the TPP ORD suffix lets us match it back to a specific order.
Save your card once, check out one-click anywhere
On your first checkout with any maker on The Painted Porch, we save your card (you can uncheck this — it's your call). After that, every checkout on every maker's shop is one tap:
"Pay with Visa ending 4242 → Place Order."
Your card never gets re-entered. If it expires, Stripe's card updater handles it automatically — you don't have to do anything. Manage or remove your saved card any time at /account/payment.
Why the maker is the merchant, not us
When you buy from Jane, Jane's business is the merchant of record — not The Painted Porch. Money goes directly into Jane's Stripe account. Jane's business name shows on your statement (with our PORCH / TPP ORD markers to help you recognize it). If there's an issue, you contact Jane directly; if the charge is disputed, it goes to Jane's account.
This is important to us because the money belongs to the maker from the moment you pay — not "to the platform, then eventually to the maker." The maker pays us a membership fee, not a commission (on paid tiers). Your $40 goes to Jane; we already got paid by Jane at the start of the month.