There is a kind of object that should not go in a van. A tall vase. A framed textile. Twenty laddoos. A cake.
For a long time the only options online were "pay for shipping" or "do not sell it", and a great deal of the best work quietly fell into the second category.
Collection, treated as a real option
Pickup on Metzee is not a fallback hidden at checkout. A seller sets pickup points, decides which items can be collected, and a buyer agrees to collect before bidding — because the time to find out an item cannot be posted is before you have won it.
The terms come with it. Where. How long you have, which is 72 hours unless the seller says otherwise. What happens if you never come, which is that the store keeps 7% — up to 20% if they have set it higher, and a flat 20% for something that spoils while it waits.
Writing that down is not pessimism. It is a maker who stopped throwing pots, wrapped one, and put it aside for three days.
What actually happens when you collect
Somebody hands you the thing they made. You say something about it. They tell you how it was fired, or who taught them, or that this glaze only works in winter.
That conversation is the entire reason this marketplace is live video rather than a catalogue. A photograph is not the thing; neither, quite, is a parcel.
It is not for everything
Most orders should be posted, and most are. If you are four states away, collection is a nice idea that costs you a day.
But a local buyer and a local maker, for an object that hates vans — that is a case the internet has been bad at for twenty years, and it did not need to be.
See the parcel is part of it for the other four ways an order travels, or find a show near you.