Retale Seller Policy

1. Seller status

You sell as a Private Seller, a Business Seller or a Charity Seller, and you must choose the one that matches how you actually sell. You must not register as a Private Seller if you sell as a business. One Account can’t mix personal and business selling. A charity selling as a trader also has a Business Seller’s obligations: the label on an Account doesn’t change the legal position. If your circumstances change, contact us so we can update your status.

2. Before you can sell

• Set up your payout account with Stripe, our payment provider, and accept its terms (see section 7.3 of the Terms). Stripe may ask for proof of identity and your bank details. If Stripe can’t verify you, or later closes your payout account, your Books come off sale until it’s sorted.
• Add the UK address you post from and a phone number. Couriers need them for postage quotes and labels.
• Choose your delivery options (section 4).

3. Listings

3.1 What you can sell

Only secondhand books, which you own and have the legal right to sell. You must not list stolen, counterfeit or pirated books, unlawfully reproduced material, books you don’t have, or anything the law or these rules don’t allow.

3.2 Describing the Book

Every Listing must describe the Book fairly and accurately. Where it applies, include:

• the edition and format, and the ISBN if it has one;
• the condition, chosen using our Condition Guide;
• writing, highlighting, inscriptions, missing or loose pages, tears, stains or other damage;
• whether it has its dust jacket, and whether it’s ex-library; and
• anything else a reasonable Buyer would want to know before buying.

Your photos must be your own photos of the copy you’re selling. You must not leave out a defect you know about. You choose the condition: we never choose it for you.

3.3 Pricing

You set the price, which must be at least 30p. You must not use misleading pricing. Business Sellers who charge VAT must enter a price that already includes it. We may ask you to correct a price that’s plainly a mistake or misleading.

3.4 Your own reading notes

If you’ve read a Book you’re selling, you can choose to show your rating and thoughts on your Listing and profile. They must be honest and your own.

4. Delivery options

You choose your delivery options in your account settings, and they apply to all your Listings: tracked delivery, local collection, or both, and which couriers you’re happy to use. Changing them doesn’t affect orders already placed. Sellers don’t set postage prices: tracked delivery is priced from the courier’s live quote, paid by the Buyer, and Retale buys the label.

If you’re away, turn on holiday mode: your Books can’t be bought until you turn it off.

5. After a sale

5.1 Offers

Buyers can make offers. You can accept, decline or counter, up to three rounds in total; an offer you don’t answer within 48 hours expires. Accepting holds the Book for that Buyer for 12 hours at the agreed price.

5.2 Posting

Post the Book within 7 days of the Buyer paying. If you need longer, you can ask once for up to 7 more days, and the Buyer can accept or decline. If it isn’t posted in time, the order is cancelled automatically and the Buyer is refunded in full. Pack the Book so it arrives in the condition you described, and use the label Retale gives you for that order only. You can tell us you’ve dropped the parcel off, but only the courier’s scan counts as proof of posting, so keep any drop-off receipt. If the courier never scans the parcel within 14 days, Retale decides the order, and you aren’t paid in the meantime.

5.3 Cancelling

Once a Book is sold, you must not sell it to anyone else. If you really can’t fulfil an order, you can cancel it before the courier has it, giving a reason; the Buyer is refunded in full. If you cancel two paid orders within 30 days, your Account is suspended automatically while we look into it (a basket counts as one). Once the courier has the parcel, it can’t be cancelled.

5.4 Local collection

Agree a date with the Buyer through Retale’s messages. The Buyer pays when you agree it. At the handover, the Buyer gives you a 4-digit code: enter it in the order before you hand the Book over, and don’t hand the Book over without it. If the code isn’t entered within 48 hours of the agreed date, the Buyer is refunded automatically. If the Buyer took the Book but wouldn’t give you the code, tell us from the order straight away, and Retale will decide instead. Meet somewhere public: see our safety tips.

6. Problems reported by Buyers

If a Buyer reports a problem, you have 48 hours to respond from the order page, as the Buyer Protection Policy explains. You can refund the Buyer and let them keep the Book, offer a partial refund, accept a return (choosing whether you or the Buyer pays the return postage; if you pay, you pay for the label by card), or disagree and let Retale decide. You agree to the Buyer Protection Policy as the refund policy for your sales, and to cooperate with Retale’s investigations, for example by sending photos of the packaging or proof of posting.

When a refund is due, you authorise Retale to make it on your behalf from the sale proceeds, so you aren’t paid the refunded Book price. If you’ve already been paid, the amount may be deducted from your earnings not yet paid out. Where the Book was the wrong Book or seriously not as described, or you choose to refund in full and let the Buyer keep the Book, you’re also charged the delivery charge, unless the Book was lost in the post. You’re never charged the Retale Fee. Any deduction is limited to your earnings not yet paid out, and Retale covers anything they don’t. If a Book is lost in the post, you aren’t paid for it, Retale bears the delivery charge, and Retale passes you any value of the Book it recovers from the courier. The outcome of a problem may be recorded on your Account.

7. Business and Charity Sellers

7.1 Information you must give, and that we show

You must give us accurate information when you set up selling, which may include your legal name, company or charity number, registered or principal address, country of tax residence and VAT number (and, for sole traders, date of birth and National Insurance number). We may ask for more where needed for identity checks, payments, fraud prevention or tax reporting. Your Listings show that you’re a Business or Charity Seller, and Buyers are shown your legal name, registered address and the authorised person’s email on your Listings, in their basket and at checkout, as consumer law requires.

7.2 Your obligations

You must follow the law that applies to your sales, including the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013: Books must be as described and of satisfactory quality, Buyers must get the information the law requires before they buy, and Buyers have the cancellation rights below. Unless you tell Buyers otherwise in your Listing, Buyers pay the cost of returning a Book they cancel. You remain legally responsible for these obligations; Retale provides the process that makes them easier to meet.

7.3 The Buyer’s right to cancel

A Buyer can cancel without giving a reason at any time from paying until the end of the 14th day after the day they receive the Book, using “Cancel this purchase” on their order page, or by emailing admin@retalebooks.co.uk. If several Books arrive separately, the 14 days run from the day the last one arrives. They can use these words, but don’t have to:

“I hereby give notice that I cancel my contract for the purchase of the following Book: [Book title]. Order ID: [order ID]. Ordered on: [date]. Received on: [date]. Name: [name]. Address: [address]. Date: [date].”

If the Book hasn’t been posted or collected yet, the Buyer is refunded straight away and the order is cancelled: don’t send it. Any label bought for it is cancelled, the Book goes back on sale, and a cancellation by the Buyer never counts against you.

7.4 Returning the Book

Otherwise, the Buyer must send the Book back to your registered address within 14 days of cancelling (or, if they cancelled while it was still in the post, within 14 days of it arriving), and tells us when they have, with the courier and tracking number (or, if they posted it untracked, proof of postage), which we can check. They pay the return postage unless your Listing said you would. You aren’t paid for the order while the cancellation is open. If the Buyer doesn’t send the Book back in time, the cancellation lapses and the sale stands, as if they hadn’t cancelled.

7.5 Refunding the Buyer

When the Book is back, confirm it on the order page, and Retale refunds the Buyer everything they paid, on your behalf. You bear the Book price and the delivery charge, taken from your earnings (or, if you hadn’t been paid for the order yet, you aren’t paid for it and bear the delivery charge); Retale bears the Retale Fee. The law gives you 14 days from when the Buyer gives us evidence they posted it (the tracking number or proof of postage): if you haven’t confirmed by then, Retale refunds the Buyer on your behalf automatically. If you think the tracking is wrong, tell us before then.

A Buyer may handle the Book only as much as they would in a shop. If they handled it more than that and it’s lost value, you can take that loss off the refund when you confirm, saying why: the Buyer is shown your reason, and the amount can’t be more than the Book price. If you weren’t yet paid for the order, you keep the amount you take off, less the delivery charge.

7.6 Faulty or misdescribed Books

Cancellation is separate from a Buyer’s rights when a Book is faulty or not as described. The Buyer can also report the problem under Buyer Protection.

8. When you’re paid

Retale sells your Books as your agent and holds the money for you until the sale completes, which is when:

• for tracked delivery, the Buyer confirms the Book arrived, or 48 hours pass after the courier records it as delivered without a problem being reported;
• if tracking never shows the Book as delivered, 3 days after we ask the Buyer whether it arrived (17 days or more after it was posted), if they haven’t reported a problem; or
• for collection, 48 hours after the collection code is entered, if no problem is reported.

Your earnings are then sent to your payout account with Stripe, which pays them into your bank, usually within 1 to 2 working days. Stripe only pays out once at least £1 is due to you; smaller amounts wait until then. Money held for you can’t be spent on Retale. We may delay a payment while a problem, a chargeback, a fraud check or a legal requirement is resolved.

9. HMRC reporting

If you make 30 or more sales, or receive about £1,700 (€2,000) or more, in a calendar year, we must collect and check your tax details and report you to HMRC, as section 13 of the Terms explains. We email you when this applies, and can’t send your earnings until you’ve given the details. We send you a copy of what we report by 31 January. You remain responsible for your own tax.

10. Messages and reviews

You must be honest and polite with Buyers. You must not:

• threaten, harass or abuse anyone;
• write, arrange or pay for fake or misleading reviews, or offer anything in return for a review or for changing one;
• ask a Buyer to pay outside Retale, or use messages to arrange a sale off Retale; or
• share a Buyer’s personal details, or use them for anything except completing their order.

11. Your responsibility for the law

You’re responsible for your own tax, VAT, consumer law obligations, ownership of what you sell, and any registration or licence you need. Using Retale doesn’t transfer these to us.

12. Selling as a business without saying so

We look at selling activity, such as how many Books someone sells and for how much, against the status they’ve chosen. If we reasonably believe a Private Seller is selling as a business, we may ask for information, require them to become a Business Seller, restrict new Listings while we check, remove Listings, or suspend the Account where that’s needed to protect Buyers or comply with the law. We’ll act reasonably and proportionately.

13. If you break this policy

Depending on how serious it is, we may ask you to correct something, remove a Listing, cancel an order, restrict your selling, ask for more verification, or suspend or close your Account. We may act straight away where there’s fraud, illegal activity, a security risk or a risk of harm. You can appeal (section 15.3 of the Terms).

14. Changes

We may change this policy as section 22 of the Terms explains. A change never affects an order already made.

15. Contact

For anything about an order, use the order page. For anything else, email admin@retalebooks.co.uk.