When people go around your marketplace, they're telling you something.

The number in the third message

A customer books a cleaner through your marketplace. The first job goes well. In the third message, the cleaner writes: "Happy to do every other Friday. Easier if you just text me," followed by a mobile number. The customer is delighted. You've just been introduced out of your own business.

Every marketplace owner meets this sooner or later, and the first instinct is to stop it: filter phone numbers, ban emails in messages, add a clause to the terms. Some of that is sensible. But it treats the symptom.

When people go around your marketplace, they're making a judgment about what it's worth to them. Leakage isn't a policing problem first. It's a verdict on what the platform does for people after the introduction. If the second booking costs the customer a fee and gives them nothing they can't get by text, they'll text.

It also helps to accept that some leakage is normal. A marketplace that's great at introductions and adds little afterwards will always lose some repeat business, and that may be fine for your model. The question is whether you're losing the transactions you actually need, and whether you're losing them for reasons you could fix.

So it helps to read the signs as information. Here are the ones we'd look for, and what each usually means.

Signs in the messages

Contact details showing up early. Phone numbers, email addresses, social handles, "find me on" lines. Watch when they appear: before the first booking, after it, or only for repeat work. Early means suppliers don't see enough value even in the first job. Late usually means the first job was worth the fee and the second isn't.

Workarounds for your filters. Numbers spelled out in words, spaces between digits, "my name at the usual email." These tell you two things: people really want to talk directly, and your filter is annoying everyone else.

Questions the platform should answer. "Can you send me a proper invoice?" "What happens if you cancel?" "Can we sort out the schedule somewhere easier?" These often come right before someone moves off. Each one is a feature request in disguise.

Signs in the transactions

One booking, then silence. A buyer and a supplier complete a job, both leave good reviews, and neither books anyone again for a while. That's the pattern that most often means they're still working together, just not through you. Look at it by pair, not by account.

Quotes that stall after first contact. If requests for quotes get replies, then a conversation, then nothing, the deal may have moved elsewhere. Or your quote flow is so awkward that people give up. Both are worth knowing.

Complaints at payout. Suppliers who object to the fee when they see the payout, especially on repeat customers, are telling you which transactions they think the platform didn't earn.

Bigger jobs disappearing. If small jobs stay on the platform but large ones rarely do, the fee is probably felt most where the stakes are highest, which is also where your protections matter most.

You'll need some care in how you look. Read messages only within what your terms and privacy policy allow, and be wary of acting against someone based on one ambiguous message.

What blocking can and can't do

Masking contact details in messages, at least until the first booking is confirmed, is reasonable. It stops the laziest leakage and gives the platform a fair chance to prove itself. Clear terms help suppliers understand the deal they signed.

But aggressive filtering has costs. It frustrates honest users ("why can't I tell them which gate to use?"). It turns your support team into referees. And determined people will route around it, so the effect fades.

Penalties work even less well. Suspending a supplier who took a repeat customer off-platform loses you the supplier and, often, the customer, and tells the rest of your suppliers that you're the obstacle.

There's a quieter risk too. Once people learn that the platform punishes direct contact, they stop telling you what's wrong. You lose the signal you needed most.

The lasting fix is the less satisfying one: make staying easier and safer than leaving.

Make the second booking easier on the platform

Think about what a buyer and supplier who already trust each other get by dealing directly: no fee, fewer steps, their own schedule. Then think about what they'd lose:

• Protected payment. The supplier gets paid on time, the buyer has a way to dispute.
• Scheduling that fits repeat work. Recurring bookings, easy rescheduling, reminders.
• Records and paperwork. Invoices and receipts that a business customer can expense, job history, warranties.
• Help when it goes wrong. Cover for cancellations, damage, no-shows, and a person to talk to.
• A rebook button. "Book Ana again" with her usual time and price, two taps.

Some marketplaces also lower the fee for repeat pairs, or charge differently for them. That can make sense, but only if you know which transactions are repeats, which takes you back to looking at pairs rather than accounts.

Our notes on your first suppliers needing a person, not a form and cataloging the exceptions before you automate the marketplace cover what keeps suppliers engaged in the first place.

Talk to the pairs who went quiet

Pull a list of buyer-supplier pairs who transacted once and then stopped, from the last few months. Talk to a handful of them on both sides. Ask what happened next, and what would have made them book through you again. You'll usually hear the same two or three answers.

Build those first. Then watch whether the pattern changes before you tighten any filter.

It's also worth asking your own team. The people who answer support messages and sort out payouts usually know which suppliers keep asking for "a proper invoice" or which customer types never come back. That knowledge rarely makes it into a report, and it's often the fastest way to find the gap.

We build marketplaces and the operations behind them, mapping what buyers, suppliers and your own team each need so the platform keeps its promises after the introduction. If people are starting to go around yours, let's talk about why.

Related work: Spin:Market.