What a buyer actually sees
Your profile, your catalog and a single lot, described from the other side of the screen — and the two settings that decide what is on them.
Last updated 2026-10-06
In short
- A buyer meets three things: your profile, a catalog, and one lot.
- Some fields are always public, whatever else you hide. A globe marks them.
- Two separate controls cover the rest: how much to show on the lot, and who can see each party in the chain.
Your profile
Your public profile carries your business name, your logo, your tagline, your contact details, your story, up to three photos, your links, and every catalog of yours that is public. A buyer who finds you in Discover starts here.
The catalog page
A catalog is a grid of lot cards. A card shows the coffee's identity — origin, variety, process, harvest — and the price if that catalog carries one. A paused lot still appears here, marked "Currently unavailable".
One lot
Opening a card opens the lot itself: origin, variety, process, harvest year, altitude, your green grading figures if you filled them in, a cupping score if you chose to share one, and the sourcing chain.
If the lot is active for sale, the buyer also gets a button that asks you for a sample.
The fields that are always public
Some fields are the coffee's identity and are always shown: the country, the region, the variety, the process, the harvest year, the altitude, and your green grading figures. A globe marks each of them on the lot form.
Hiding a party in your chain does not hide these. They belong to the coffee, not to a person. There is no switch that hides a green grading figure — leaving the box empty is how you keep one to yourself.
How much to show
"How much to show" has three settings. They decide what a buyer sees on the lot in your catalog, and what someone who scans a printed code sees. It is one setting for both.
- Show everything — farm location, farmer name, full origin detail.
- Show key details — region, variety, process, altitude. No exact farm location.
- Show basics only — country, region, variety and score.
You can change this freely until a roaster puts the lot on a bag. After that first bag it can only ever move towards showing more, never towards showing less.
Who can see each party
Every party in your chain carries its own separate setting.
- Show name — everyone sees the name, the place, the date and the note.
- Type and place only — the name is hidden and the buyer reads something like "A cooperative in Yirgacheffe".
- Don't show — the party is removed from the chain a buyer reads.
Nobody can force you to name who you buy from. The same rule applies all the way up the chain: a hidden party stays hidden however many suppliers pass the lot along.
Words used in this journal
- Lot — one batch of coffee you are selling, and the record of it in LotsLog.
- Logged — your record of the coffee is complete. It does not mean anyone can see it.
- Active for sale, Paused, Currently unavailable — one switch, three screens. "Active for sale" is the switch on the lot. "Paused" is what My Lots calls it when the switch is off. "Currently unavailable" is what a buyer reads in your catalog.
- Sold out — a separate switch from Active for sale, for a different fact: the coffee is gone, not just that you have paused selling it. A sold-out lot still shows to buyers, marked sold out, and stays in your catalog as proof of what you sell.
- Archived — taken out of your lists and off every public page, without being deleted. Restore brings it back.
- Catalog — the list a buyer browses. A lot reaches a buyer through a catalog and through no other way.
- Chain — the parties the coffee passed through, from the source at the bottom up to you.
- Sourcing link — a record that one of your lots came from another supplier's lot. You ask for it; they confirm it.
- Show name, Type and place only, Don't show — how much of one business a buyer sees. The same three words on every screen that asks: confirming a link, your own choice on a link, and each entry in the lot form's chain.
- Published — a roaster has put your lot on their own bag. It never means a catalog.