How It Works & User Guide | Wild Caught Seafood Exchange

How the exchange connects people

Vessels report what they expect to bring in. Markets can see catch offered for sale, bid on it, and tell vessels what products they need. When an offer is agreed, the vessel books an offload time on the selected market's hoist.

A vessel may choose a different market for each load. It can allocate a load directly to a market and schedule that market's hoist, or mark a load Open for Bid. An open load can receive offers for specific products and pounds. A vessel can also open only a portion of an allocated load for bids.

Each market has its own hoist calendar. A manager may propose another market's hoist in a bid, but that hoist's manager must approve its terms before the vessel can schedule there.

Managers can review the products and estimated pounds on open loads. Vessels working with the same market can see one another's scheduled hoist times, while the other vessels' reported catch quantities are hidden. Salespeople see expected inventory coming to their market and can reserve portions for their in-house customer accounts.

Vessels can also announce Dock Sales directly to customers. A Dock Sales listing shows products, prices per pound, and pickup details without requiring an estimated total weight. Customers request pounds and the vessel confirms availability.

The app records offers, messages, and schedules. It does not collect or transfer payment.

Get started

On the first screen, select Vessel/Market Access, then Request a Vessel or Market Account.
Enter your contact details and account type. Vessel users enter a vessel name and Home Port. Managers and salespeople select their market when it is listed.
An administrator verifies the request, creates the account, and provides sign-in details. Requesting an account does not grant access by itself.
Sign in and open My Account to check your details. Vessel users should check their Home Port and Primary Market.

Customers can instead select Public Access for Dock Sales on the first screen, then Create a Dock Sales Customer Account. Enter your name, city, phone, email, and password. Customer signup does not need administrator approval.

If you forget your sign-in name or password, select Forgot username or password? on either sign-in screen and enter the phone number on your account. Once text delivery is configured, the app texts your sign-in name and a single-use password reset link that expires after 15 minutes. If no text arrives, contact an administrator.

Cards start closed to keep the screen tidy. Select a heading to open its card. Opening another main card closes the previous one.

For vessel users

Report catch and schedule an offload

Open Report Catch on [your vessel] to Schedule Hoist or Open for Bid. Your vessel name is filled in.
Choose a market or Open for Bid. Your Primary Market is the starting choice, but you can change it for each load.
Enter the estimated arrival date. Select each product and its estimated pounds. Use Add Another Product for a mixed load.
For a market load, choose an open time on that market's hoist calendar and an estimated offload duration. Reserved time slots are shown. A market load needs a hoist booking when it is declared.
For an Open for Bid load, select an arrival port. No hoist booking is required yet.
Select Declare Load. After a successful submission, the form clears and closes.

Review loads and offers

Open Current Load on [your vessel] and select a load line. You can see details and bids, edit or delete your own load when allowed, or use Offer Portion for Bid to move some catch into a separate open load. The remaining market load keeps its hoist booking.

For each bid, check the product, pounds, price per pound, proposed offload hoist, and any third-party hoist fee. You can accept, reject, or counter the load offer. If another market owns the proposed hoist, that market's manager must approve the hoist arrangement. Once the necessary terms are approved, choose Accept Bid and Schedule Offload or Schedule Approved Offload and select an available hoist time. Any unsold remainder can stay open for other bids.

Offer Dock Sales

In the report card, choose Dock Sales. Enter the pickup port, exact dock or address, Dock Sales start and end times, and each product's price per pound. No total weight is required. Customers choose an approximate pickup time within those hours. My Dock Sales Listings shows each product's initially reserved pounds, pending pounds, cancelled and declined pounds, picked-up pounds, and confirmed pounds remaining to be picked up. The listing closes automatically at its end time, cancelling pending requests while keeping confirmed pickups in the history. Close a product or the whole listing earlier to stop new requests and cancel pending requests while keeping confirmed pickups. Cancel a product or listing if it will not be available; this also cancels confirmed reservations. Open Dock Sales Reservations to see customer requests grouped by pickup date. Confirm available requests, decline them, or mark them cancelled or picked up. Completed statuses remain visible.

Book the hoist for another purpose

Open Schedule hoist for ice, gear, or other use. Choose the market hoist, purpose, start time, and duration. Use Other purpose to describe a different use. See your reservations in Hoist Schedule for [your vessel].

Reconcile a trip and prepare deckhand reports

In Manage Expense Types and Bait Prices, add the expense types your vessel uses and maintain bait names with their current price per case. Fuel and Bait are already in the expense list. Choose a type for each trip expense. Fuel takes gallons and total price and calculates price per gallon. Bait takes a bait type and number of cases and calculates the total using its case price. Changing a bait's current price affects new trip entries; saved expenses keep the case price they recorded. Other expense types take a total price.

Open Trip Reconciliation, then expand Deckhands to view the crew list or add a deckhand before assigning shares. Enter the trip start and end dates and the Main Engine's total meter hours at trip end. Generator and Auxiliary total meter hours are optional. These are cumulative readings, not hours used during this trip. Add an offload line for each product sold, with its unload date, market, pounds, and price per pound. An unload date may be after the trip end date. The Product and Offload Market lists include the app's known choices. If a product or buyer is missing, add it under My Offload Products or My Offload Markets; those choices belong only to your vessel's trip reports and do not change the main app database. Add expenses taken off the top, then add each deckhand working the trip and enter their percentage of profit after expenses. The percentages may total up to 100%; the remaining profit stays with the vessel. Save the trip to keep it in Past Trips, where you can reopen and edit it. Download the full PDF or use Share [deckhand] PDF for a report showing only that deckhand's share. On a phone, Share opens available sharing apps when supported; otherwise download the PDF and attach it yourself. Trip reports are private to the vessel account and are not shown to markets. PDFs are not automatically emailed or texted.

Hear about market needs

In My Account, choose the products and market ports you want notices about. A need must match both choices. If you choose no ports, your Home Port is used; if you choose no products, you receive no new Market Needs notices. Open Market Needs Sent to Your Vessel to read, acknowledge, and reply to matching needs. A Market Need is an expression of interest, not an accepted bid.

For Dock Sales customers

After creating your customer account, open Dock Sales Available and choose a port. Expand a vessel to see its currently available products, prices per pound, and Dock Sales hours. Select one or more products from that vessel, enter pounds for each, choose an approximate pickup time within those hours, and select Request Reservation. Submit a separate request for another vessel. The vessel confirms whether it can supply each product. Check My Dock Sales Reservations for the status and estimated total. You can cancel a pending or confirmed request there. Payment is arranged directly with the vessel; the app does not collect it.

For market managers

Find catch and make an offer

Open Available Loads for Bid. Loads are grouped by arrival port, with a separate line for each product. Select a product line to see its details. Choose the pounds and price per pound you want to offer. Select the proposed market hoist for offload and add an optional note. A manager bids only for their assigned market.

If you propose another market's hoist, include the fee your market will pay to that hoist's market. Submit the bid and follow it in Current Product Bids for [your market]. You can edit or withdraw a bid while it is still awaiting the vessel's response. If the vessel counters, review and respond in the app.

Review requests to use your hoist

Open [Your market]'s Hoist Bid Requests to approve, reject, or counter another market's request to use your hoist. The vessel schedules the offload after the load and hoist terms are approved.

Tell the fleet what you need

Open Broadcast [Your market]'s Need to Fleet. Select products, enter pounds needed for each, optionally add a note, and select vessels. Review the Home Port groups and choose Send Market Need. Use Vessel Replies to answer in the app. Older needs and their conversations move to Market Needs History at the start of a new week.

A vessel receives a matching need according to its product and port choices. Text delivery also requires that vessel's opt-in and an active text service. All needs and replies remain available in the app.

Watch your market

Use Market Interests to choose products for available-load text alerts. Every open load remains visible in Available Loads for Bid regardless of alert choices. Your market's hoist schedule shows reservations on your hoist. If catch purchased by your market is offloaded on another market's hoist, it appears on that other hoist's schedule.

For salespeople

Open Incoming Loads for [your market] to see the products, estimated pounds, and expected arrival or offload times for your assigned market. In Customer Accounts for Incoming Allocation, maintain your market's in-house customer accounts. Select an incoming product and reserve a number of pounds for one of those accounts. The app prevents reservations from exceeding the reported pounds. Past items are available in History.

For administrators

Open Administrator to review Account Requests. Verify a person's details before creating their account in Accounts. Assign managers and salespeople to a market and enter vessel details for vessel users. The administrator also maintains Markets, Products, and Arrival Ports, which supply choices used throughout the app.

Status and notifications

Green indicates a load allocated to a market or an accepted bid with a home.
Red draws attention to open catch, a counteroffer, or a card needing action. Read the accompanying words for the next step.
Purple means a load or bid is still pending.
Ready to Schedule means the approvals are complete and the vessel needs to choose a hoist time.

The app shows relevant activity when you sign in or open the related card. Text alerts depend on account preferences and text delivery being active. Keep checking the app for actions needing your response.

Useful terms

Market: A seafood operation using the exchange. Each market has a hoist calendar and defined port.
Load: Catch reported by a vessel, with one or more products and estimated pounds.
Open for Bid: Catch not yet allocated to a market that can receive offers.
Bid: A market's offer for specific product pounds at a price per pound, with a proposed hoist and any third-party hoist fee.
Market Need: A manager's request telling selected vessels which products and pounds the market seeks.