Seller agreement

1. What we charge

4% of the item price plus 30p, taken only when the item sells. There is no listing fee, no monthly fee, no fee for a listing that does not sell, and no fee for ending one.

Commission is charged on the item, never on the postage. The postage you charge the buyer is passed to you whole — we do not take a percentage of the money you hand to the carrier.

Card processing costs us roughly 1.5% plus 20p on a UK card. We absorb it. It is not deducted from you and does not appear on your statement.

If a sale is refunded, our commission is returned with it. We do not keep a fee on a sale that was undone.

2. When you get paid

Money is released to you after the buyer has received the item, plus a holding period — 14 days by default, 7 for established business sellers with a clean record. It then moves to your Stripe account and to your bank on Stripe's normal schedule.

The hold exists because a card payment can be reversed weeks after it is made. If you have already been paid and spent it, the loss lands on Microcity or, under the clause below, back on you. Holding the money briefly is how a marketplace stays solvent and how buyers stay willing to buy from strangers.

A payout is frozen while an order is disputed, while a case is open against it, or while your account is suspended pending review.

3. Chargebacks

Where a buyer's bank reverses a payment and the reversal relates to your conduct — the item was not sent, was not as described, or was sent untracked against the rule below — the amount is recoverable from you. We take it from held funds first, and where there are none, it becomes a debt you owe us.

Orders over £100.00 must be sent tracked. Not a suggestion: without proof of delivery a chargeback cannot be defended and is lost automatically. We will not carry that loss for a seller who chose to save on postage.

4. Listing honestly

• The condition grade must match the item. Grades are defined on the site and mean the same thing for every seller — that consistency is most of what a buyer is paying us for.
• Photographs must be of the actual item for anything used, refurbished or damaged. Stock photographs are for sealed new goods only.
• Every known fault must be described. Every one.
• No listing may direct a buyer to complete the sale elsewhere, and no contact details may be included in a listing or a message for that purpose.
• You must have the item, and it must be yours to sell. No drop-shipping from a third party and no listing something you intend to buy after it sells.

5. Dispatch and returns

Post within three working days of the order unless the listing says otherwise, and mark it as posted on the site so the buyer is told.

Business sellers must honour the statutory 14-day cancellation right and the Consumer Rights Act. Private sellers are not bound by either, but every seller must take back an item that does not match its description.

Where we decide a case in the buyer's favour we can refund from your held funds without your agreement. We will always tell you why.

6. Your status, and HMRC

UK law requires online marketplaces to report seller information to HMRC where a seller makes 30 or more sales, or around £1,700, in a calendar year. If you cross that threshold we report your name, address, date of birth and tax identifier along with your sales figures. We tell you when we do it. This applies to private sellers as well as businesses; it is not a judgement about whether you are trading.

Selling as a private individual while actually running a business is unlawful, because it strips your buyers of rights they are entitled to. Where volume and pattern suggest trading we will ask, and where the answer does not hold up we reclassify the account.

7. Suspension

We suspend accounts for:

• Listing prohibited goods, or editing wording to evade screening
• Taking sales off-platform, or asking a buyer to pay by bank transfer
• A pattern of items not arriving, or not matching their description
• Fake reviews, whether bought, exchanged or written by you
• Threatening or abusing a buyer or our staff

A suspended account cannot list, but existing orders must still be completed and held funds are released once those orders are safely closed. We are not keeping your money; we are waiting to find out whether we owe it to someone else.

8. Changes

We will give 30 days' notice by email before any change that affects fees, payout timing or your obligations. Continuing to sell after that is acceptance. Notice periods for platform terms are also a legal requirement under the Platform to Business Regulations, and we would rather exceed them than argue about them.

Related

• What cannot be sold
• Returns and refunds
• Apply to sell