Terms of service

These terms cover using Maker & Story — as someone browsing and buying, or as a maker selling their work. They describe how the marketplace genuinely operates today.

What Maker & Story is

Maker & Story is a marketplace where independent makers sell their own work directly. When you buy something, your purchase is with that maker, not with us. We provide the place you find each other, the storefront, the checkout and the order record; the maker makes the item, sets its price and shipping, and posts it.

Your account

• You need an account to add items to a cart, check out, or sell.
• Keep your sign-in details to yourself, and let us know if you think someone else has got into your account. You can review active sessions and trusted devices, and turn on two-factor authentication, from Account security.
• Give accurate information — particularly delivery addresses.
• One person, one account.

Buying

• Prices and shipping are set by each maker and shown before you pay. If your cart holds work from more than one maker, you check out with each separately.
• Orders can be shipped to addresses in the 50 states and Washington, DC.
• Payment is taken by Stripe on their own checkout page. We never receive your card details.
• The maker is responsible for making, packing and posting your order, and for the dispatch times shown on their storefront.
• Handmade work varies. Small differences between the photograph and the piece you receive are part of buying something made by a person, not a fault.
• If something is wrong with an order, contact the maker first — see Contact.

Selling

• List only work you actually made or are genuinely entitled to sell, and describe it honestly — materials, dimensions, and how long dispatch takes.
• Use your own photographs, or images you hold the rights to. Don’t use someone else’s pictures or someone else’s story.
• Makers must be based in the U.S., and ship from an address in the 50 states or Washington, DC.
• New shops are reviewed before they appear publicly. We may ask for changes, or decline a shop that doesn’t fit the marketplace.
• You can be discovered before you can take payment — publishing and connecting Stripe are separate steps. You’ll need Stripe connected before customers can check out with you, and Stripe’s own terms apply to that account.
• Fulfil what you sell, within the times you advertise, and keep your shipping and returns information accurate and current.

Reviews and reporting

Reviews can only be left by someone who actually bought the product. Write honestly about your own experience. Product and maker pages carry a report option for listings that look wrong, misleading or unsafe, and those reports go to our review team.

What isn’t allowed

• Listing work you didn’t make or aren’t entitled to sell.
• Infringing someone else’s copyright, trade mark or designs.
• Misrepresenting what an item is, what it’s made of, or who made it.
• Fake reviews, or attempts to manipulate ratings or discovery.
• Harassing or abusing other people through the site.
• Trying to break, overload, scrape or gain unauthorised access to the marketplace.

Content and intellectual property

Makers keep ownership of their own words, photographs and designs. By listing on Maker & Story you give us permission to display that content on the marketplace so it can be shown, found and shared — nothing further. The Maker & Story name, logo and the site itself remain ours.

Suspension and removal

We may take down a listing, unpublish a shop, or suspend an account that breaks these terms — for example content that isn’t the seller’s to sell, or activity that puts buyers at risk. Where it’s reasonable to do so we’ll explain why and give a chance to put it right. You can stop using your account at any time; see Contact to have it removed.

Availability

We work to keep the marketplace running, but we can’t promise it will always be available or error-free. Features change as the marketplace develops.

Contact

Legal notices about these terms can be sent to legal@makerandstory.com. For help with an order, an account or a shop, see Contact.

Related

The Privacy policy covers what happens to your information. The Help page explains how ordering and accounts work in practice.