These terms govern your use of Rare Kind, a UK-only peer-to-peer marketplace for pre-owned clothing, shoes, and accessories (the Service), operated by Simpson's Ventures Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales under company number 17169404 with its registered office at 61 Bridge Street, Kington, HR5 3DJ, United Kingdom, trading as Rare Kind (we, us, our). By creating an account, listing an item, or making a purchase you agree to these terms.

1. Who can use the Service

You must be at least 18 years old, a resident of the United Kingdom, and able to enter into a legally binding contract. You are responsible for the accuracy of the information you provide and for keeping your account secure.

2. Our role as a marketplace

Rare Kind is a venue connecting buyers and sellers. The contract of sale for any item is between the buyer and the seller directly; we are not a party to that contract. We provide the platform, payment processing (via our partner Stripe Payments UK Limited), and dispute resolution described in Section 9.

Sellers declare at signup whether they are selling as an individual (private consumer) or as a business (sole trader or registered company). Business sellers are marked with a verified badge on the Service, and are subject to additional consumer protection obligations under UK law including the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 and the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

Where we reasonably consider that a user self-declared as an individual is in fact selling in the course of a business (for example, based on volume, inventory patterns, or professional sourcing), we reserve the right to reclassify the user as a business seller, or to require them to re-register under the correct status. Consumer rights that apply to sales from business sellers apply regardless of how the seller has declared themselves; nothing in these terms affects those rights.

3. Accounts and usernames

Each user is represented publicly by a username (@handle). We may refuse or reclaim a username that impersonates a third party, infringes trademarks, or is offensive. You may only operate one account without our prior permission.

4. Listings and prohibited items

Sellers are responsible for the accuracy of their listings, including condition, sizing, photographs, and authenticity claims. The following items may not be listed:

• Counterfeit, replica, or unauthorised reproductions.
• Stolen goods.
• Items that infringe third-party intellectual property.
• Weapons, ammunition, hazardous materials, or anything prohibited under UK law.
• Items requiring age verification (alcohol, tobacco, etc.) unless explicitly supported by the Service.
• Items regulated by CITES or equivalent wildlife legislation.

4A. Listing photographs

Listing photographs must be your own original photographs of the actual item you are selling. You may not upload:

• Photographs taken from a brand's website, marketing materials, lookbooks, or social media.
• Photographs taken from other resale platforms, marketplaces, or other sellers' listings — including your own listings on other platforms where the photograph was taken by someone else.
• Stock photography or editorial imagery of any kind, regardless of whether the image is labelled as "free to use".
• Images that include third-party branding, logos, or trade dress in a way that is not incidental to a photograph of the physical item (for example, Photoshopped brand logos, promotional graphics, or composite images).

Incidental inclusion of a brand logo, care label, or tag in a photograph of the genuine branded item you are selling is permitted and expected. The rule above is about photographs that you did not take and do not have permission to publish.

If we receive a credible notice that a photograph in a listing infringes someone's copyright, we will remove it. See our IP Infringement Policy for the notice-and-takedown procedure and the counter-notice route. Repeat infringement will result in account suspension under Section 13.

5. Your content and licence to us

When you upload content to the Service — including photographs, descriptions, messages, reviews, and any other material ("Your Content") — you retain all intellectual property rights in it. You grant us a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, sublicensable licence to host, store, reproduce, display, transmit, adapt (for technical reasons such as resizing), distribute and otherwise use Your Content for the purpose of operating and promoting the Service. This includes, without limitation, rendering listings to other users, featuring listings in Rare Kind marketing (such as social media, email campaigns, or the homepage), and passing content to our service providers (e.g. our image storage and analytics providers) to deliver the Service.

You warrant that you own or have all necessary rights in Your Content and that it does not infringe the rights of any third party. You may remove Your Content at any time by deleting the listing or your account; the licence ends when Your Content is removed, except to the extent we need to retain copies for legal, regulatory, or backup purposes, and except for any reasonable use of marketing materials already published before removal.

6. Buyer protection and fees

Every purchase includes a buyer protection fee (6% of the item price plus £0.90), paid by the buyer at checkout. This fee is shown as a separate line item on the checkout page before you commit to buy, and the total price (item + postage + buyer protection) is presented to you in full before payment. The fee is not optional for purchases made through the Service; it funds the hold on seller payouts after delivery (see below), the dispute process in Section 9, and any refunds awarded under that process.

Postage is paid by the buyer at checkout. The buyer selects a carrier at checkout from the seller's preferred list (see Section 8). Each carrier has a price shown at checkout for the seller's declared parcel size, determined by reference to quotes from our shipping partner Sendcloud (Sendcloud Global B.V.) and rounded to the nearest 10p. The price shown per carrier is final; no shipping fee is added later in the flow. We use the buyer's postage payment to purchase the shipping label on their behalf. Sellers receive the full item price; sellers do not receive or retain any of the postage and do not pay for labels out of pocket. The buyer protection fee funds the platform's operating costs (dispute handling, escrow, and Stripe's card processing fee on the item charge) so these are not deducted from the seller's payout. If Sendcloud is unavailable at the moment of checkout, a fallback flat-rate table (£3.49 small, £4.99 medium, £7.99 large) is used so checkout does not block; these amounts are ceilings and the price shown is typically lower.

The item price is held in escrow by our payments partner Stripe until the hold window expires or the buyer explicitly confirms satisfaction. The hold length depends on the seller's account type, to reflect the different consumer rights that apply:

• Individual (private) sellers — 2 days from confirmed delivery. This matches the in-platform dispute window in Section 9.
• Business sellers (sole traders and Ltd companies) — 14 days from confirmed delivery. This covers the statutory 14-day cancellation right under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013; funds remain in escrow so a cancellation exercised in days 3–14 can be refunded without clawback.

A buyer who marks the order satisfied before the hold expires releases the seller's payout early. Funds release at the next scheduled payout cron after the relevant window.

7. Payments

Payments are processed by Stripe. By buying or selling on the Service you agree to Stripe's Connected Account Agreement (sellers) and consumer terms (buyers).

8. Shipping

Sellers pick the carriers they're willing to ship with on their shipping-preferences page; buyers see only those carriers as options at checkout. The carrier the buyer chooses at checkout is the carrier we book the label with. If the seller hasn't set any preferences, the default list (Royal Mail, Evri, InPost — the carriers we currently support) is offered to the buyer.

We generate the shipping label automatically once payment is confirmed. The seller receives the label in the format they selected on their shipping-preferences page — a PDF to print, or a QR code to show at a drop-off point. The seller is responsible for handing the parcel to the carrier (or taking it to a drop-off point) within 7 days of payment. If the parcel isn't handed over within 7 days, the order is automatically cancelled and the buyer is refunded in full — no dispute needed. Shipping addresses are captured at checkout and shown only to the seller of that order.

9. Disputes

A buyer may open a dispute through the Service within the post-delivery window that applies to the seller's account type:

• Individual sellers — 2 days from confirmed delivery.
• Business sellers (sole traders, Ltd companies) — 14 days from confirmed delivery. This longer window incorporates the statutory 14-day cancellation right under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, so a buyer who wants to cancel under that right does so through the same dispute flow.

Acceptable grounds include: not received, not as described, damaged, counterfeit, wrong item, or cancelling under the statutory 14-day right (trader sales only). Disputes are reviewed by our team. Outcomes include: full refund, partial refund, release of funds to the seller, or no action. Refunds reduce or eliminate the seller's payout for that order.

These windows are hard cut-offs for the in-platform dispute process.Once the applicable window has closed, the seller's funds release from platform escrow and we are no longer able to facilitate a platform-managed resolution. Alternative remedies remain available and are unaffected by the platform cut-off:

• your statutory rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 (where applicable — see Section 11);
• chargeback through your card network or payment method;
• Citizens Advice, Trading Standards, or your local court for small-claims.

We may, at our sole discretion, review a late complaint outside the platform window — for example where fraud is suspected or where tracking evidence materially changes after the window — but no commitment to do so is made under these terms.

10. Auto-delivery presumption

If the buyer hasn't confirmed receipt within 10 days of the seller dispatching the parcel, the order is automatically treated as delivered. The applicable hold window from Section 6 (2 days for individual sellers, 14 days for business sellers) then runs from that auto- delivery date, after which the seller's payout releases. Your statutory consumer rights continue in full after this point (see Section 9 on remedies that remain available after the platform window has closed).

11. Consumer rights

Where you are a consumer acting as a buyer, your statutory rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 remain unaffected by these terms.

The Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 generally do not apply to contracts between private individuals: items sold by private (individual) sellers on the Service are sold without a warranty of satisfactory quality, and the 14-day change-of-mind right does not automatically apply. Buyers are expected to inspect photos and descriptions before purchase. Items sold by business sellers remain subject to the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and to the 14-day cancellation right in the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, including the obligation to refund the standard delivery cost on cancellation.

11A. Seller promotions (Front Row)

Sellers may purchase the Front Row promotion — a paid priority placement across the Service. The current fee is £5.99 for 7 days per purchase; the fee and duration are shown before purchase, payment is taken through Stripe, and a receipt is emailed to the seller. Multiple purchases stack: a second purchase made while the first is still active extends the expiry by a further 7 days.

While Front Row is active, the seller's active listings are prioritised above non-promoted listings in the default order of search results, the home feed, and category pages, and carry a Front Rowbadge on listing cards and on the seller's public profile. We do not guarantee a sale, a specific number of views, a particular search ranking, or any other outcome. Sort orders chosen explicitly by a buyer (e.g. price ascending) still apply within the prioritised group.

Front Row is a digital service supplied immediately on payment. By purchasing it you expressly request that we begin supplying it immediately and you acknowledge that, in line with the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, you lose the 14-day cancellation right once supply has begun. The fee is therefore non-refundable except where the service has not been provided as described, or where a refund is required by law. If your account is suspended for a breach of these terms during an active Front Row period, the remaining time is forfeited.

We may pause or withdraw a Front Row promotion if the seller's account is suspended, if the promoted listings are removed for breach of these terms, or if continuing the promotion would be unlawful or would mislead buyers. We may also adjust the fee, duration, or badge from time to time; changes apply to purchases made after the change.

12. Acceptable use

You agree not to: harass, threaten, or defraud other users; circumvent the Service to transact off-platform; scrape data; submit malicious content; or misuse any refund or dispute mechanism.

13. Suspension and termination

You may close your account at any time at /account/delete. The deletion is reversible for 30 days; after that, the personal data we are not legally required to retain is permanently deleted. Account closure is blocked while you have orders, payouts, or disputes in progress so all parties can complete those transactions. We may suspend or terminate accounts where we reasonably consider it necessary, including in the following circumstances (by way of example, not exhaustively):

• Serious or repeated breach of these terms (for example, listing prohibited items, circumventing fees, or misusing the dispute process).
• Suspected fraud, identity issues, or repeated "item not received" claims not supported by evidence.
• Harassment, abusive behaviour, or threatening conduct directed at other users or our team.
• Counterfeit goods or confirmed intellectual-property infringement.
• A court order, regulator's direction, or legal requirement.

Our response will be proportionate to the issue. Where appropriate we will first issue a warning or ask you to correct the problem; immediate suspension is reserved for conduct that is clearly serious, causes real harm to other users, or presents a legal risk we must act on without delay.

Appeals. If we suspend or terminate your account you may appeal by emailing hello@joinrarekind.co.uk from the email address linked to the account. Set out the basis for the appeal and any supporting evidence. We aim to respond within two working days. An appeal is reviewed by a member of our team who was not involved in the original decision where feasible. We will not withhold payouts properly due to you except as required to resolve an open dispute, to comply with the law, or where a hold is necessary while an investigation is ongoing.

14. Liability

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits our liability for:

• death or personal injury caused by our negligence;
• fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation by us or anyone for whom we are responsible;
• any breach of your non-excludable statutory rights as a consumer; or
• any other liability that cannot be limited or excluded under UK law.

We are responsible to you for foreseeable loss and damage caused by our breach of these terms or by our failure to use reasonable care and skill in providing the Service. Loss or damage is foreseeable if either it is obvious that it will happen or if, at the time you accepted these terms, both we and you knew it might happen.

We are not responsible for the condition, authenticity, or delivery of items sold through the Service, because those are matters between the seller and the buyer. Subject to the paragraphs above, and to the fullest extent permitted by law, our total liability to you in respect of all losses arising out of or in connection with these terms or your use of the Service will not exceed the greater of (i) the total fees we have received from you in the 12 months preceding the claim or (ii) £100. This cap does not apply to any of the matters listed in the first paragraph of this section.

15. Changes

We may update these terms. Material changes will be communicated by email or an in-app notice at least 14 days before they take effect. Continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance.

16. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales. Any dispute arising out of them is subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales, save that consumers may also pursue claims where they are resident (including in Scotland or Northern Ireland).

17. Contact

Questions or notices regarding these terms should be sent to hello@joinrarekind.co.uk.

See also our Privacy policy, Returns & refunds policy, and Cookie policy.