Seller terms

These seller terms are an agreement between you and Innercity Studios Limited ("Trovio", "we", "us"). They apply on top of our terms of use, which cover everyone who uses Trovio. Where the two differ on anything to do with selling, these seller terms win.

You agree to them when you open a shop. Please also read our list of things you can't sell, our returns and refunds policy and our privacy policy, which form part of these terms.

• You must be 18 or over, and able to enter into a legally binding contract where you live.
• You need a Trovio account in your own name, or in your business's name if you sell as a business. You can run one shop per account.
• Your shop name, logo and banner mustn't copy someone else's brand or mislead buyers.
• You're responsible for everything that happens in your shop, including anything done by people you let help you.

You must tell us honestly whether you're selling as a business (a "trader") or as a private individual, and update it if that changes. As a rough guide, if you make items to sell for a profit regularly, buy things in to resell, or sell under a business name, you're probably a trader. If you're unsure, check the guidance from your tax authority.

If you sell as a business, you must:

• show buyers your business name, a geographic address, an email address and, where you have them, your company and VAT numbers
• honour buyers' legal rights, including the right to cancel within 14 days for most items in the UK and EU, and the rules on faulty items
• meet the consumer, product safety, labelling and tax laws that apply where you sell from and where your buyers live

Pretending to be a private seller to avoid these duties isn't allowed, and we may close shops that do.

To pay you, our payments partner Stripe needs to check who you are, and you must accept Stripe's Connected Account Agreement. You'll do this through secure forms on Trovio. We may also ask you for information or documents to prevent fraud and meet our legal duties.

The law in the UK, the EU and some other countries requires platforms like Trovio to collect details about sellers, including name, address, date of birth, tax reference and how much you sell, and to report them each year to the tax authority (in the UK, HMRC). We'll send you a copy of what we report. If you don't give us the details we need, we may pause your payouts or shop until you do.

By listing an item, you promise that:

• you own it, or have the right to sell it, and it's legal to sell where you are and where you ship it to
• it isn't on our list of things you can't sell
• your photos and description are your own work, or you have permission to use them, and they're accurate and show any faults, wear or repairs
• if you say it's handmade, you or your team made or designed it; if you say it's vintage, it's at least 20 years old
• it doesn't copy or infringe anyone else's trademark, design or copyright
• the price, stock, shipping options and dispatch time are correct, and you'll keep them up to date
• prices include any VAT or sales tax you have to charge, and buyers see every compulsory cost before they pay

Don't use fake discounts, fake "only one left" messages, misleading reviews or any other tactic that pressures or misleads buyers.

Every new listing, and every change to a live listing's words or photos, is checked against our policies before buyers can see it. The first check is done by an automated tool that uses AI to read your listing and look at your photos. It can approve a listing, turn it down or pass it to our team. It never closes a shop on its own.

If a listing is turned down, we'll tell you why and which rule it broke. You can change it, or choose Ask a person and a member of our team will look at it again, usually within a day. Price and stock changes don't trigger a new check.

You're responsible for making sure your items are safe and meet the rules for the places you ship to. That includes, where they apply:

• safety rules for toys, children's items, cosmetics, candles, electrical items and anything that touches food
• labelling with your name and address, warnings and instructions, and marks such as UKCA or CE
• for items sold to buyers in the EU or Northern Ireland, the General Product Safety Regulation, which may require you to name a person in the EU responsible for the item's safety

If you learn that an item you've sold isn't safe, stop selling it, tell us straight away and follow any recall rules. We may remove items, tell buyers about a safety problem, and share information with the authorities when the law requires it.

• When a buyer pays, you'll get an email and a notification. Please send the order within the dispatch time shown on your listing.
• Mark the order as sent once it's on its way, and add tracking where you can. Tracking protects you if a parcel goes missing or a buyer disputes the payment.
• If an order isn't marked as sent within your dispatch time plus 7 days, it's cancelled and the buyer is refunded automatically.
• Pack items safely. Until an item is delivered, it's at your risk, so choose a service with enough cover for valuable items.
• Reply to buyers' messages within two working days where you can, and keep conversations about an order on Trovio.
• Never ask a buyer to pay you outside Trovio for an order or item they found here.

Shipping labels. You can buy shipping labels through Trovio, provided by ShipStation and the carriers you pick. The label price is the carrier's rate plus a 20p Trovio label fee, taken from your payout. The carrier's own terms apply to the delivery, including claims for lost or damaged parcels.

• Set a clear returns policy for your shop. It can be more generous than the law, but never less than buyers' legal rights.
• If you sell as a business, you must accept cancellations and returns where the law gives buyers that right, and refund within 14 days of getting the item back or of proof it was sent.
• Whoever you are, if an item doesn't match its description, is damaged or never arrives, you're expected to put it right with a repair, replacement or refund.
• If you and a buyer can't agree, either of you can ask us to step in. We'll look at what you both send us, including messages, photos and tracking, and make a fair decision. That decision may include refunding the buyer from the order's money.

• One selling fee: 6% of each order, including shipping. Card processing is included. There are no listing fees, monthly fees or payout fees. We may offer a lower rate through promotions, rewards or fee-free events, which are explained when they apply.
• Featuring (optional): you can pay a flat £3.00 for 1 week, £6.00 for 2 weeks, £10.00 for 4 weeks to feature a listing. Featured listings are always labelled as featured. It's a one-off payment with no subscription, and featuring is shared fairly between paying sellers.
• Shipping labels (optional): the carrier's rate plus 20p per label.
• Currency conversion: when a buyer pays in a different currency from yours, the buyer pays a 2% conversion margin, so it doesn't come out of your share.

Our fees include VAT where it applies. We'll give you an invoice for our fees on request. We'll tell you at least 30 days before we raise any fee or add a new one.

• Payments are taken by Stripe and held for you. Your share of an order is released as soon as you mark it as sent.
• For a new shop's first 5 sales, your share is released 7 days after you mark the order as sent, or sooner once it's marked as delivered. After that, you're paid on dispatch.
• Money is paid to your bank account by Stripe, in your account's currency, on Stripe's payout schedule. Your bank may take a few days to show it.
• If an order is refunded, or a buyer's bank reverses a payment and the dispute goes against you, we take back what was paid out for it from your balance or future payouts. Our selling fee is refunded to you on a full refund.
• We may delay a payout, or hold a reserve, if we reasonably think there's a risk of fraud, a lot of refunds or disputes, or a breach of these terms. We'll tell you why and how long it's likely to last.
• If you owe us money that can't be taken from your payouts, you agree to pay it when we ask.

You're responsible for your own tax, including income tax, and for registering for and charging VAT or sales tax where the law requires it. In some countries the law makes a platform like Trovio responsible for collecting tax on certain sales, for example on low-value imports. Where that applies, we'll collect and pay it, tell you, and show it separately in your sales records.

You can connect a Shopify or WooCommerce store, or import a spreadsheet, to bring your items to Trovio and keep products and stock in sync. When you connect a store:

• you're responsible for the products it sends to Trovio, which must meet these terms and are checked like any other listing
• Trovio orders can be added to your store so you can fulfil them there. Those orders still follow these terms and our buyer protection
• you can disconnect at any time from Integrations in your Shop manager, or by removing the Trovio app from your store
• Shopify's and WooCommerce's own terms apply to your use of their services

When someone buys from you, we share their name, delivery address, phone number (if they gave one) and order details with you so you can send their order. This section sets out how you and we look after that information, in line with UK and EU data protection law. You and Trovio are each responsible, separately, for the personal data you handle.

• Use it only for the order: use buyers' details only to fulfil, deliver, support or refund their order, and to meet your legal duties such as keeping tax records. Don't add them to a mailing list or use them for marketing unless the buyer has agreed to that directly with you.
• Keep it safe: keep buyers' details secure, only share them with people who need them to send the order (such as a carrier or fulfilment service), and delete them when you no longer need them.
• Tell us about problems: if buyers' details you got through Trovio are lost, stolen or seen by someone who shouldn't have them, tell us within 48 hours at hey@innercitystudios.co.uk, so we can help and, where needed, tell the people affected and the regulator.
• Help with requests: if a buyer asks us for a copy of their data or asks us to delete it, help us with anything you hold from their Trovio order.

Connected stores. If you connect a Shopify or WooCommerce store, we process your store's data (products, stock, delivery settings, policies, discount codes and the Trovio orders we add) on your behalf, only to keep Trovio in sync with your store. In that role we:

• only use your store's data to provide the sync you switched on, and never sell it
• keep it encrypted in storage and in transit, and limit our staff's access to those who need it, with every view of personal details logged
• use trusted providers to run Trovio: Supabase (database, hosted in London), Vercel (hosting), Stripe (payments), SendGrid (email) and ShipStation (shipping labels). Each is bound by data protection terms, and any transfer outside the UK is covered by approved safeguards
• tell you without undue delay if a security incident affects your store's data
• delete your store's keys as soon as you disconnect, and the rest of its data within 30 days, apart from records we must keep by law
• answer reasonable questions about how we protect your data, and show you our policies on request

Our privacy policy explains how we handle personal data as Trovio, including how long we keep it.

You keep ownership of your photos, descriptions, shop name and logo. You give us a worldwide, free licence to host, show, resize, translate and share them to run and promote Trovio and your items, for example in search results, the app, emails, social posts, shopping feeds such as Google Shopping, and adverts for Trovio. The licence ends when you remove the content, apart from copies already shared or still clearing from our systems.

If a rights owner tells us a listing infringes their rights, we may remove it and pass on your contact details to them only where the law allows. If you think a removal was a mistake, you can tell us why and we'll look again.

In search and category pages, items are mainly ordered by how closely they match the buyer's search words or the category, how recently they were listed, and the sort order and filters the buyer chooses. Your fee rate doesn't affect where your items appear.

Paid featuring places items in set featured spots, always labelled. You can't pay to move up ordinary search results, and nobody else can either.

We may remove a listing, hide your shop from search, pause payouts, or suspend or close your shop if you break these terms or the law, put buyers or others at risk, receive a high number of genuine complaints, or if the law or a regulator requires it.

• We'll always tell you what we've done, why, and which rule or law it relates to, unless the law stops us or telling you would put someone at risk.
• Before closing a shop for good, we'll give you at least 30 days' notice, unless the law requires us to act sooner, you've seriously or repeatedly broken these terms, or there's a risk of fraud or harm.
• If your shop is closed, you'll still be paid for orders you've properly completed, less refunds, disputes and anything you owe us, and you can download your sales records.

You can close your shop at any time from your Shop manager once your open orders are finished.

If you disagree with a decision we've made about your listing, shop or payouts, or you're unhappy with us for any other reason, contact us through Help and contact and say what you'd like us to look at. A member of our team who wasn't involved in the first decision will review it. We aim to reply within five working days and will explain the outcome. Using our complaints process doesn't stop you going to court.

You're responsible for your items, your listings, your dealings with buyers and your legal duties. You agree to cover us for losses, fines and reasonable costs we suffer because you broke these terms or the law, for example if a rights owner or regulator brings a claim about your item.

Selling on Trovio is a business activity, so our responsibility to you is limited. We aren't responsible for lost profits, lost sales, lost business or indirect losses, and our total responsibility for all claims in any 12 months is limited to the greater of £100 and the fees you paid us in that period. Nothing in these terms limits responsibility for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else the law doesn't allow to be limited.

• Changes: we'll give you at least 15 days' notice of changes to these terms, or 30 days for fee increases, unless the law or a security risk means we must act sooner. If you don't agree, you can close your shop before the change takes effect.
• Notices: we'll contact you by email or in your Shop manager. Legal notices to us go to hey@innercitystudios.co.uk.
• Which law applies: these terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales deal with any dispute between you and us.
• Everything else: nothing in these terms makes you our employee, agent or partner. If a court decides part of these terms isn't valid, the rest still applies.