The three steps between deciding to buy and the item being on its way.
There are two ways into checkout — Buy Item on a single item, or Checkout on one seller's group in your cart — and both run the same three steps: Order Details, Payment, Confirmation.
Where you say where it is going and check what it will cost. You will see the item and its value, and you choose:
With no address saved yet, that first field is an amber line instead of a dropdown, and Delivery Addresses in it is a link straight to the page where you add one. Your browser’s Back button brings you back to checkout — and if you would rather start again, the order is kept unpaid under Orders, with a Pay button on it.
The shipping cost appears once an address is chosen, because it depends on where the parcel is going. The Total underneath is the item plus that shipping — it is the figure you will actually be charged.
Two lines here are worth reading if they appear. "Free shipping is available for this item and the selected delivery address" means this seller ships free to that country. "The agreed price on this item has expired" means a negotiated discount ran out of time, and the current listed price applies instead.
If you started buying an item and never paid, checkout finds that order and says so rather than making a second one. Your details are still there to change, and the price is the one already on the order — a seller's later price change does not re-price an order you already have.
A summary of exactly what you are paying for, the seller's Shipping, Returns & Exchanges, Cancellations and Customs & Taxes terms, and the card form itself.
Payment is handled by Stripe. Card details are entered into Stripe's own form and go straight to them — Artmire never sees or stores your card number. Which cards and wallets you can use is shown on the seller's Payment section and in the site footer.
You are charged in the item's own currency, not yours. Your bank converts it at their rate, so a card statement may not match the total on screen to the penny.
Buying a single item, you can tick Use TopUp Credit and spend your account balance instead of a card. Checkout shows what the credit covers and what is left to pay, and tells you plainly if you do not have enough.
Credit cannot be used on a cart payment for now. A cart group is paid by card only — if you want to spend credit on an item, buy it on its own with Buy Item.
Once Stripe confirms the payment you get a confirmation with your Order ID and a note that you will be told when the seller ships. An email follows for each item bought.
From that moment the item is yours and the seller's job starts. Nothing more is needed from you until it arrives.
A cancelled or failed payment does not lose you anything. The order stays unpaid in your account and the item stays on the Artmire platform — go back to it from Orders and try again.
Until the payment succeeds, nothing is held for you. An unpaid order does not take the item off sale, and another buyer can still buy it. This is also true of an accepted offer waiting to be paid — the negotiation reserves the price, not the item.