> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://course.pokesignal.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# 4.2 · Confirm or Change Your Primary Venue

> Use the provisional sales record, economics, and current venue constraints to confirm, switch, or add a primary venue.

The provisional venue used for the [Chapter 1.4](/chapters/1-4-validate-before-you-build) work-fit test may or may not deserve to remain the
primary venue. A marketplace can bring buyer intent
but charge per transaction and control payout timing. A direct storefront can offer more
control but needs demand from somewhere else. Live and in-person selling create different
mixes of attention, scheduled labor, and service work.

The decision now is whether the existing venue can reach suitable buyers while clearing your
cost, cash, time, and service limits—or whether another venue should replace or complement it.

## Compare the full operating fit

Headline fees are only one input. For each plausible venue, compare buyer fit, cost shape, owner
time, cash timing, service fit, and how much control remains if the venue changes its terms or
disappears.

The archetypes make those trade-offs easier to scan:

| Venue archetype   | Where demand comes from                      | Operating load and cost shape                                         | Main constraint to test                               |
| ----------------- | -------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------- |
| Marketplace       | Platform search and existing buyer intent    | Per-transaction costs plus listing and fulfillment work               | Buyer fit, current costs, and payout lag              |
| Direct storefront | Traffic the business brings                  | Site overhead and payment costs; ongoing demand work                  | Whether measurable traffic becomes orders             |
| Live selling      | Platform discovery plus a scheduled audience | Live hours, preparation, moderation, and platform costs               | Whether contribution justifies scheduled selling time |
| In-person         | Event or local foot traffic                  | Table or travel costs, setup, negotiation, and a fixed selling window | Whether buyer fit and fully loaded hours work         |

These are operating patterns, not promises about named platforms. Check the official current
costs, payout terms, seller requirements, and service rules for the venue you are actually
considering. Record the source and date rather than carrying a remembered percentage into the
test.

## Eliminate venues that break a hard limit

Begin with the lane and cash window from [Chapter 3.2](/chapters/3-2-matching-class-to-capital). Remove a venue if its buyers do not fit
the inventory, its current costs push modeled contribution below your floor, its payout lag
exceeds the cash limit, or its recurring work exceeds the hours available. [Chapter 2.4](/chapters/2-4-selling-is-a-math-problem) owns
the price floor; do not invent a new one for the venue test.

Until [Chapter 4.4](/chapters/4-4-fulfillment-and-the-customer-promise) defines the full service policy, use a provisional gate: a reliable handling
cadence, maximum orders per ship run, and sustainable response time. Remove a venue whose
current rules exceed it, then revisit the gate after writing the full policy.

What remains is the test set. If two venues still look plausible, choose the one whose largest
uncertainty can be measured with the least cash and irreversible setup.

## Test one venue long enough to see the workflow

Bring forward the provisional venue, cohort, completed orders, owner time, and friction record from
[Chapter 1.4](/chapters/1-4-validate-before-you-build). Add the cost, contribution, cash-lag, and pricing inputs you built in Part 2. This is
the baseline; do not discard it and start the selling test again.

Run or extend one primary-venue window until it covers 30 days with the measures below. Orders from
the earlier work-fit test may count when they used the same cohort and rules and captured the
required measures. Do not reconstruct a missing exposure or time record after the fact. Thirty
days is an experiment boundary, not proof across every season or scale.

Write the complete confirmation test before launch or extension:

**Venue and cohort:** Primary venue \_\_\_; defined inventory cohort \_\_\_; price policy \_\_\_.

**Current inputs:** Verified on \_\_\_ from \_\_\_; modeled venue costs \_\_\_.

**Activity and exposure:** I will complete \_\_\_ and measure \_\_\_ as exposure.

**Operating limits:** Owner-hour cap \_\_\_; maximum sale-to-cleared-cash lag \_\_\_; provisional
handling and response limits \_\_\_.

**Decision controls:** The test is valid only if \_\_\_. Review on \_\_\_. Confirm if \_\_\_; switch if \_\_\_;
add another venue only if it has this distinct job: \_\_\_. Otherwise extend or rerun the test.

Use a cohort you can count. If inventory is added during the test, record it separately so a
changing denominator does not make demand look better or worse.

## Measure demand, economics, and effort separately

Add one venue-specific exposure measure: qualified store visits, live viewers, event
conversations, or listing impressions when available. Define it before launch so zero sales
can be separated from zero exposure.

**Cohort sell-through = completed cohort units sold under your return convention ÷ cohort
units offered**

**Contribution per owner hour = total modeled contribution from the cohort ÷ venue-specific
owner hours**

**Cash lag for an order = cleared-payout date − sale date**

For sell-through, use the same cohort unit in the numerator and denominator. Both ratios require
positive denominators. If no owner hours were recorded, contribution per hour is *not applicable*,
not zero. Before launch, declare when a sale counts as completed and how cancellations or returns
change the numerator. Model contribution with the established cost model rather than gross sales,
and record every venue-specific hour.

Finalize cash lag only after payout clears. At review, keep uncleared orders visible as
*pending*. A pending order that has already exceeded the maximum lag fails the limit; one still
inside it leaves the cash condition unresolved.

These are signals, not isolated diagnoses. Sell-through combines exposure, inventory, price,
listing quality, and buyer fit. Contribution per hour describes observed economics and work;
cash lag shows when completed sales became usable cash.

## Decide the branches before the result

First test whether the experiment itself is valid. If planned activity was not completed, the
cohort or rules changed materially, or a key measure remains unavailable, mark the result
*inconclusive* and extend or rerun it. Do not force weak evidence into a business decision.

Then apply the precommitted branches:

* **Confirm** when the test was completed and buyer fit, modeled contribution, owner hours, cash
  lag, exposure, and service performance all clear the thresholds you wrote, applying the pending-
  payout rule above.
* **Switch** when the test was completed faithfully but a hard venue constraint still fails.
  Name the failed constraint and what the next venue must solve.
* **Add** only when the first venue works within capacity and a second venue has a distinct
  job, such as reaching a buyer segment the first does not serve. Addition is not a substitute
  for repairing a failed first channel.

Record sell-through, modeled contribution per owner hour, cash lag, and any pending payouts in
the test you wrote. Once the venue is chosen, the next job is making received inventory accurate,
findable, and ready for that venue.