Marketplace & Seller Terms

Escrow, commission, seller duties and buyer protection.

Version 15 · in force since 25 October 2026 · what changed. Drafted in good faith; not legal advice.

When you buy or sell here, the contract for the goods is between the buyer and the seller. We are the venue, the payment rail and the escrow — not the merchant.

Escrow

The buyer's money is charged to the platform and held. It is released to the seller when the buyer confirms receipt. If the buyer neither confirms nor objects, it is released automatically:

• with carrier tracking — 3 days after the carrier reports the parcel delivered. While the carrier still shows it on its way, it waits (at most 30 days from sending); if the carrier reports it returned or lost, it is not released by the clock at all;
• a digital item — 3 days after it was delivered in the app;
• otherwise — 14 days after the seller marked it sent.

Sending orders on time

Every listing says how many business days its seller takes to send an order (two, unless the seller chose otherwise), and each order shows the date it is due to be sent by. A seller must send within that time. If an order has not been sent by then, both of you are told, and you may cancel it for a full refund or choose to keep waiting.

Listings, checkout and orders also show an estimated delivery date: the send-by date plus a typical transit time (a few business days within the US, longer abroad), replaced by the carrier's own estimate once a parcel is tracked. It is an estimate, not a promise; the send-by date is the seller's promise. We email both of you a receipt and the updates on an order (sent, arrived, cancelled, refunded, late, returns and problems).

I'm here, and signing for it. On a local delivery the seller (or their delivery partner), and on a collection the buyer, can tap I'm here to tell the other person they have arrived; it sends no location. When the handover is completed with the buyer's code, the buyer may also sign on the seller's screen. The signature is optional and kept with the order as evidence; it is the code, not the signature, that completes the order.

Delivery photos. When a parcel is sent, or during a local delivery, the seller (or their delivery partner) may add up to three photos of where it was left. The buyer is told, and both of you and our staff can see them if a problem is reported. A photo is evidence, not a confirmation: an order still ends when the buyer confirms it, gives their code, or the clock runs out as described above.

An order that was never dispatched is never swept. When a seller gives a tracking number we pass it, with the carrier, to our tracking provider to follow the parcel, and the carrier's updates appear on the order.

Paying in birr

Where it is offered, a seller may price an item in Ethiopian birr. The buyer pays on the page of Chapa, a licensed Ethiopian payment gateway, with telebirr, CBE Birr or a card, and the payment goes straight to the seller, less our commission. Because we never hold it, a birr order has no escrow and no buyer-protection fee: the seller is paid when you pay. Prefer collection or local delivery, where the order ends only when you give your code. An order not paid within 120 minutes is cancelled. A birr order cannot be cancelled or declined after it is paid; the seller refunds you directly, and you can report a problem on the order.

Local delivery

A seller may offer to bring an item to you themselves, within an area they describe. While they (or their fulfilment partner) are on the way, the app shares their phone's location with you; it stops when you give them your delivery code, when the order is cancelled, or after 8 hours. The delivery ends like a collection: you give the code only once the item is in your hands, and that is what releases the payment.

Fulfilment partners

A seller may ask another account — a warehouse, or someone who helps them — to send or deliver orders for them. A partner must accept, sees what is needed to send an order (the item, the quantity, the delivery address and contact you gave), and can mark it sent, post delivery updates, deliver locally and confirm a handover. A partner never sees payments and cannot decline, cancel or refund an order. The seller remains responsible for the sale.

Shipping labels

Where it is offered, a seller may compare carrier prices and buy a postage label in the app. We buy it from our shipping provider, and its price is taken from what that order pays the seller, before any buyer-protection reserve; a label can only be bought for a paid order and never for more than the order pays the seller. The order is then marked sent with the label's tracking number.

Digital items

A digital item — a file, a link or message, or a code — is delivered in the app as soon as the payment is held, and only the buyer can open it. You agree to that at checkout, and because it cannot be given back, a digital item cannot be returned or cancelled once delivered; if it is not what was described, report a problem on the order and the payment stays held while we look. Sellers must have the right to sell what they deliver.

Protected deals in a chat

Two people can agree a sale inside their own conversation rather than through a listing. The same escrow carries it: whoever is buying pays, the money is held, and it reaches the seller only when the buyer confirms it arrived. The contract for the goods is between those two people; we are the venue, the payment rail and the escrow, and we are not a party to what they agreed.

• Either of them may cancel before it is paid for. Nothing is charged until the buyer pays.
• Nobody else can pay it, confirm it or cancel it. Only the buyer pays and only the buyer confirms; only the seller marks it sent.
• If the buyer never confirms something the seller marked as sent, the money is released to the seller after 14 days.
• If the seller never even marks it sent, the money is returned to the buyer after the same 14 days. A deal cannot sit held for good because one of them walked away.
• Either of them can report a problem while the money is held. That freezes it: nothing moves until we settle it, and the only two outcomes are a refund to the buyer or a release to the seller.
• The fees are the marketplace's fees — the same commission from the seller's share and the same buyer protection fee, both shown before anybody commits.
• An account with money held in a deal cannot be deleted until that deal is finished or settled, because it is money owed to somebody else.

We do not vet what two people agree between themselves. Escrow protects the payment, not the judgement: it will not make a bad bargain good, and the prohibited items rules apply here exactly as they do to a listing.

Listings

Every listing is reviewed by our staff before anyone else can see it. Changing the price or the stock takes effect at once; changing what the item is (its name, description or category) sends it back for review. You can mark an item sold, hide it, or delete it; orders already placed are not affected. A listing does not carry your email or phone number: buyers reach you with “Message seller”.

Buying from outside the US

You can buy for delivery to any country, except countries under US embargo (we cannot sell to Cuba, Iran, North Korea or Syria). No US sales tax is charged on a delivery outside the US. Your country may charge import duty or VAT when the item arrives; that is between you and your country's customs, not part of the price you pay here. Sellers decide whether they ship abroad: agree the delivery cost and time in your chat with them before you pay, and a seller who cannot ship to you may decline the order (you are refunded in full).

Buyers in the EU

A seller sells to addresses in the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway only once they have chosen to, in one of two ways. As a trader — anyone selling as a business or a trade — they give us their legal name, address, phone, email and trade register entry (if they have one), their identity is checked when they set up payouts, and they confirm they only offer products that comply with EU law; buyers see those details on the shop and every item. As a private seller they confirm they are not selling as a business, and are shown as a private seller: EU consumer law (such as the 14-day right to cancel) does not apply to buying from a private person. A seller who has chosen neither cannot be bought from with an EU address.

A seller's record

Buyers see each seller's stars and how many orders were completed; from 5 orders on, also the share of ratings that were positive and of orders that were disputed, over the last year. One rating per order. If, over the last 90 days and at least 10 orders, a shop has many disputes or refunds or very low ratings, it stops taking new orders until our staff review it. The seller is told why straight away; orders already placed, returns and payouts carry on as normal.

Reports and decisions

Anyone can report a listing. To report that a listing is illegal, explain why (and under which law, if you know), give your name and email, and confirm the report is accurate and made in good faith. We tell you it arrived and, later, what we decided. A seller whose listing we take down is told what we did, why, on what ground, whether an automatic check was involved, and how to contest it. Every listing photo, and a still from the host's camera every couple of minutes during a video live, is checked automatically for goods we do not allow; a match only puts it in front of a person. A listing may only show photos and video its seller uploaded.

What it costs

Our commission is deducted at settlement and is shown to the seller before a listing goes up. Payment processing fees are the processor's and are shown separately. Buyers see an escrow fee on top of the item price, disclosed before payment.

Your own buyers. A buyer who arrives through your own shop link (from Seller Center) pays the usual price; you pay 5% commission instead of the usual rate on their orders for 30 days. It does not apply to yourself or to a buyer who had already bought from your shop.

Shipping. Each listing shows either free shipping or the seller's flat shipping price, and may add a set price for each additional item in the same order. The shipping price is part of the total you see before you pay, is set by the seller (never changed at checkout), and is passed to the seller in full; we take no commission on it. Collection, local delivery and digital items carry no shipping charge. If an order is cancelled or refunded in full, its shipping is refunded with it.

Staying on Whinchat

A sale between you and a buyer you met on Whinchat is paid on Whinchat. Do not ask or encourage a buyer to pay you another way (a payment app, a bank transfer, cash on a shipped order, another website) to avoid our fees, and do not put contact details in a listing for that purpose. Buyer protection, your ratings, your sales count and your badges come only from orders paid on Whinchat, so a sale made outside it counts for nothing here. Anyone can report a message asking them to pay outside Whinchat, and the report includes that message. If our staff confirm the report, the sender is warned the first time; a second confirmed report within 180 days pauses new orders on the shop until our staff review it.

Invites and rewards

An invite counts when the person who joined through your invite link completes a purchase or a sale on Whinchat (paid, received and not refunded) within 60 days of joining. It does not count if that purchase or sale was with your own shop, if the account shares a device or phone number with yours, or if it is banned.

• Badges show on your shop page and in your invites: Connector at 5, Builder at 10, Community builder at 25, Ambassador at 100 counted invites.
• Free buyer protection. Every 3 counted invites earn a credit that takes up to $5.00 off the buyer protection fee on one order, used at checkout, at most 4 a month. A credit used on an order that is refunded or cancelled is given back. Credits have no cash value and cannot be transferred.
• Bringing sellers. When a shop you invited completes 10 sales (not to you), you pay 8% commission instead of the usual rate for 30 days; more shops add more days, up to 90 days ahead. If you have more than one lower rate, the lowest applies.

Rewards are worked out from completed orders. If we find invites made with fake or shared accounts, purchases arranged to earn rewards, or orders later refunded, we may take back the badges, credits and lower commission they earned, and may treat it as misuse of the service. We may change or end the rewards with notice in these terms; rewards already used are not taken back for that reason.

New shops

Until a shop has completed 10 sales on Whinchat, an order can be worth at most $500.00, at most 15 orders can be waiting to be paid out at once, and an order of $100.00 or more is paid out 7 days later than usual. The limits end by themselves once the shop reaches that number of sales.

Branded and genuine goods

Only genuine goods may be sold. A listing that calls itself a copy of a brand (a replica, a dupe, "1:1", "inspired by") is refused. A listing that names a brand on our list is approved only after we have checked a supplier invoice for that brand, dated within the last 365 days, and a photo of the item next to a paper showing the listing's own code. The owner of a registered trademark can verify their brand; a verified owner can report a listing of their brand as not genuine, and it is taken off sale and its payouts held until our staff decide. A buyer who receives an item that is not genuine can return it or report a problem, as for an item that is not as described.

Seller obligations

• Be 18 or over. Selling, opening a shop and being paid are contracts, and only an adult can make them. Buying is open to every account.
• Describe the item accurately, including condition and what is not included.
• Have the right to sell it, and be allowed to sell it where you and the buyer are.
• Provide the identity information the INFORM Consumers Act requires of high-volume sellers. We collect it; collecting is not the same as verifying, and we do not claim to have verified it.
• Honour the returns policy shown on your shop page: whether you take returns, for how many days after the item arrives (14, 30 or 60), and who pays the postage. The terms an order was placed under stay with that order, even if you change them later. Whatever your policy says, an item that is not as described, damaged, the wrong one or missing parts can be sent back for at least 14 days after it arrives.
• Ship what was ordered, in the time you stated.

Buyer protection

If the item never arrives, or is materially not what was described, raise it before the escrow releases. Once released, the money is the seller's and we can no longer reverse it from here — your route is then the payment processor's dispute process, and the seller.

Promoted listings

Paid placements are labelled. Placement is bought by the day at a published rate; it is not targeted using your personal data, and paying does not change a listing's ranking inside search results beyond the labelled slot.

Taxes

Sellers are responsible for their own taxes. We report what the law requires us to report, and provide sellers with a record of their settled transactions.

Prohibited goods

Prohibited & Restricted Items applies to every listing.

What has changed

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