Cratemint Marketplace Terms (Seller Terms)

Version: DRAFT (not yet in force)

Effective from: not in force. These terms take effect on the date set when the launch gate in README.md is cleared.

The version string above is the same string a seller's acceptance is recorded against. It is set in three places at once and they must never disagree: this line, MarketTerms.currentVersion in apps/ios/Packages/CratemintSelling/Sources/CratemintSelling/MarketTerms.swift, and REQUIRED_TERMS_VERSION in supabase/functions/activate-listing/handler.ts. If they drift, a seller is either re-prompted for consent they already gave, or never prompted for terms that changed. The procedure that moves all three together is docs/runbooks/legal-in-force-flip.md.

1. What these terms cover

These terms will govern selling records through the Cratemint marketplace. They are additional to Cratemint's general Terms of Service and apply to any user who sets up a seller account and lists records for sale.

The marketplace is a peer-to-peer venue. Buyers and sellers are individual Cratemint users. Cratemint is not a party to the sale of any record.

2. Cratemint is the venue, the seller is the merchant of record

• The seller is the merchant of record. When a record sells, the contract of sale is between the buyer and the seller. The seller owns the item, sets the price, describes and grades the item, fulfills the order, and ships it.
• Cratemint provides the venue and the payment rails only. Cratemint hosts the listing, connects buyer and seller, and processes payment through Stripe Connect (see section 5). Cratemint does not own, inspect, hold, or ship any record, and does not take title to any item at any point.
• Because the seller is the merchant of record, the seller is responsible for the legality of the item, the accuracy of the listing and grade, packing and postage, applicable consumer-law obligations to the buyer, and the seller's own tax obligations (see seller-tax-notice.md).

3. Eligibility and geography (launch)

• At launch the marketplace is domestic United Kingdom only. Both the seller and the buyer must be in the United Kingdom (country GB), and both the item price and shipping are in pounds sterling (GBP).
• Cross-border sales, and markets outside the UK, are not available at launch and are a separate future decision.
• A seller must complete Stripe Connect Express onboarding (section 5) before any listing can go live. Listings can be prepared before onboarding, but they stay dormant until Stripe onboarding status is complete.

4. Listings, grading, and fees

4.1 Goldmine grading is mandatory

• Every listing must carry an explicit Goldmine grade for both the media and the sleeve. A grade is never defaulted or guessed. The seller is responsible for grading honestly and accurately.
• Where a listing carries Cratemint's guided Verified (V0) grade, the seller is still responsible for the accuracy of that grade against the actual copy shipped.
• Photos in a listing are proof of the actual copy for sale and must show that copy, not a stock or catalogue image.

4.2 Fees

• Commission is 10.8% flat, charged on the item price only. Commission is not charged on shipping.
• Card processing is charged separately, at cost: 1.5% of the total charged to the buyer, plus 20p. This is the standard rate Stripe charges Cratemint for a UK card, passed on without a markup. Where a buyer pays with a premium, commercial or non-UK card and Stripe charges more, Cratemint absorbs the difference rather than passing it on, so the seller sees one predictable number.
• There are no listing fees, no monthly fees and no fixed platform fee. Listing a record is free. Cratemint is paid only when a record sells.
• Both lines are shown plainly on the listing form before the seller publishes, and itemised on every payout. Honest, transparent fees are a deliberate commitment, not fine print.
• Commission rates will not be increased. Where Cratemint changes seller pricing it will be to reduce it or to run a time-limited promotion that expires back to the published rate.

5. Payments and payouts (Stripe Connect Express)

• Each seller onboards to a Stripe Connect Express account through Stripe's hosted onboarding and identity (KYC) flow. Stripe, not Cratemint, verifies the seller's identity and holds the seller's banking details.
• Payment is taken at checkout on Cratemint's platform Stripe account when the buyer pays. This reserves the item and creates the order.
• Funds transfer to the seller on shipment. Cratemint uses Stripe's separate charges and transfers model. When the seller marks the order as shipped, Stripe transfers the item price plus shipping, less the commission and the card processing charge, to the seller's connected account. This is a hold-until-shipped arrangement: the seller is paid after dispatch, not at the moment of sale.
• The money then sits in the seller's Stripe account for 14 days before it can be withdrawn. These are two different events and the difference matters. The transfer (Cratemint's platform balance to the seller's connected account) happens at shipment. The payout (the seller's connected account to the seller's bank) is on a daily schedule with a 14 day delay, set by Cratemint on the seller's account when it is created. So a seller sees the sale credited the moment they post the record, and receives it in their bank 14 days later.
• The 14 days are not arbitrary. They match the 14 day window in which a buyer can raise a significantly-not-as-described claim (section 6 and dispute-policy.md). If a claim is upheld after the seller has been paid, the refund is funded by reversing that transfer, and a reversal needs the money to still be in the connected account. Paying out sooner than the claim window closes would mean there was nothing left to reverse.
• A refund after payout comes out of the seller's payout, penny for penny. A full refund reverses the whole transfer. A partial refund reverses that exact amount from the seller and is capped at what the seller was paid: Cratemint will not take back more than it transferred. Reversal is an operator action taken when a platform-mediated dispute is upheld (section 6), not an automatic one.
• Chargeback liability sits on the seller's connected account. If a buyer's card issuer reverses a payment (a chargeback), the liability for that reversal falls on the seller's Stripe connected account, consistent with the seller being the merchant of record.
• Payout timing, holds, and reserves are also subject to Stripe's own terms, which the seller accepts during Stripe onboarding.

6. Returns, and the platform return floor

• The seller sets the seller's own returns policy, but only above a platform return floor. The seller may offer buyers more than the floor; the seller may not offer less.
• The platform return floor is that the following two situations are platform-mediated and refundable, regardless of the seller's stated returns policy:
  1. Item not received. The buyer paid and did not receive the record.
  2. Significantly not as described. The record received is significantly different from the listing (for example, materially misgraded, wrong pressing, or damaged in a way the listing did not disclose).
• Where Cratemint upholds a platform-mediated dispute in the buyer's favour, the refund is funded from the seller:
  • If the order has not yet been marked shipped, no transfer has been made and the refund comes from the funds still held on Cratemint's platform balance. The seller is never out of pocket because the seller was never paid.
  • If the order has been marked shipped, the transfer has been made and the refund is recovered from the seller by reversing that Stripe transfer (a clawback from the seller's connected account balance). This is the ordinary case for a not-as-described claim, because such a claim can only arise after the record has been sent. The 14 day payout delay in section 5 exists so the money is still in the seller's connected account when this happens.
• How disputes are opened, the evidence expected, the time windows, and how a decision is made are set out in dispute-policy.md.

6a. Trader status, and the buyer's statutory cancellation right

[VERIFY WITH COUNSEL] This whole section. It states the platform's understanding of the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 and of the online-marketplace information duties introduced by the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. It was drafted by an engineer and needs review before the market opens.

• Sellers on Cratemint are of two kinds, and the difference decides what rights a buyer has:
  • a business seller (a "trader" in the Regulations), selling in the course of a business; and
  • a private seller, a collector selling their own records privately.
• Every seller must declare which they are before any listing can go live. The declaration is made once at seller onboarding and is recorded against the seller account with the date it was made. A seller who has not declared cannot activate a listing. A seller who has connected a shop system (for example Shopify) is treated as a business seller regardless of what they declared.
• Cratemint displays that status to buyers on every listing and on the seller's profile, together with a plain statement of what it means. This is an information duty on the platform: a buyer cannot otherwise know which set of rights applies to their purchase.
• Where the seller is a business seller, the buyer has a statutory right to cancel a distance purchase within 14 days of receiving the record, and to a refund, under the 2013 Regulations. That right runs against the seller, not against Cratemint. It exists whether or not the seller's own returns policy mentions it, and a seller's stated policy cannot reduce or exclude it.
• Where the seller is a private seller, no such statutory cancellation right arises, and returns are governed by that seller's own stated returns policy and by the platform return floor in section 6, which applies to every sale on Cratemint whoever the seller is.
• A false declaration is a breach of these terms. Declaring as a private seller while selling in the course of a business misleads buyers about their legal rights, and is grounds for removing listings and suspending the account under section 7.

6b. The Cratemint cancellation window

• Separately from anything in section 6a, a buyer may cancel any order within 60 minutes of paying, for any reason and with no questions asked, provided the seller has not yet marked it as shipped. The refund is automatic and in full, including postage, and the record goes back on sale.
• This is a platform convenience offered by Cratemint, not a statutory right. It is deliberately short: it covers a mis-tap or an immediate change of mind without stranding a seller who packs and posts the same day.
• It neither grants nor limits the statutory right in section 6a. A buyer purchasing from a business seller keeps their full 14-day right regardless of this window, and the window closing does not close that right.
• Once the seller has marked an order as shipped, the cancellation window no longer applies, and the buyer's route is the returns policy, the platform return floor, or (for a business seller) the statutory right.

6c. Seller protection

• A seller who posts with tracking, and whose tracking shows the parcel delivered, wins an item-not-received claim. A seller who posts without tracking carries the risk of that claim.
• At or above an order value of £20, Cratemint advises tracked postage and warns the seller at the point of shipping. Below that value untracked postage is a legitimate choice made knowingly.
• The tracking number and carrier are recorded when the order is marked shipped and cannot be changed afterwards.
• This governs Cratemint's own adjudication only. It does not limit a buyer's statutory rights against a business seller under section 6a, and it does not govern card chargebacks, which are decided by Stripe and which section 5 already places on the seller's connected account.
• Entering a tracking number for a parcel that was not sent is a breach of these terms and grounds for action under section 7.

7. Prohibited conduct and prohibited items

• Sellers must not list prohibited items or engage in prohibited conduct. The full list, including bootlegs and unofficial pressings, counterfeits, stolen goods, and promo / not-for-resale nuances, is in prohibited-items.md, which forms part of these terms.
• Cratemint may remove a listing, cancel an order, suspend a seller account, or withhold funds where these terms or the prohibited-items policy are breached, subject to the dispute and payout mechanics above.

7a. Reviews, retaliation, and extortion

Buyers may review a seller after an order completes or is refunded. Reviews are the buyer's own opinion, are published without the buyer's name, and cannot be edited or withdrawn once posted. Sellers do not rate buyers.

• No review extortion. A seller must not offer, request, or make anything of value conditional on a review: no refund, replacement, discount, faster dispatch, or other benefit in exchange for a review being written, changed, or removed, and no threat to withhold any of those unless one is.
• No retaliation. A seller must not retaliate against a buyer for a review or a dispute. That includes refusing obligations under these terms, harassment on or off the platform, withholding support the buyer is owed, and misusing any report mechanism against a reviewer.
• Removal is moderation's alone. Cratemint removes a review only where it breaches these terms or the platform rules (for example harassment, hate, spam, or unlawful content), on report and after review by a person. Cratemint does not remove or edit a review at a seller's request, and a review being negative is not a ground for removal. A seller who believes a review breaches the rules should report it and let moderation decide.
• Breach of this section is a breach of section 7 and carries the same consequences: listing removal, order cancellation, account suspension, or withheld funds, subject to the dispute and payout mechanics above.

8. Data boundary

• Cratemint's catalogue is Cratemint's own copy of openly licensed (CC0) data. Sellers list physical records only. Sellers do not sell, and Cratemint does not sell, catalogue data. The full boundary is restated in prohibited-items.md.

9. Governing law and jurisdiction

[GOVERNING LAW / JURISDICTION: PLACEHOLDER for the lawyer.] The governing law and the courts that will have jurisdiction over these terms are to be set by counsel before these terms take effect.

10. Acceptance and versioning

• These terms are accepted by the seller at seller onboarding, before the first listing can go live. A seller who has not accepted the current version cannot bring a listing live.
• These terms are versioned, and the version in force is printed at the top of this document. A material change means a new version and re-acceptance by every seller. The version a seller accepted, and the date they accepted it, are recorded against their seller account.
• A change that is not material (a typo, a clearer sentence, a corrected link) does not change the version and does not re-prompt anyone.