Terms of Service

Welcome to CottageCrafted. These Terms of Service (the "Terms") are a legal agreement between you and CottageCrafted, operated by A Plan in Place LLC ("CottageCrafted," "we," "us"), and they govern your use of cottagecrafted.co and everything on it (the "Service"). Please read them carefully.

1. Accepting these Terms For everyone

By creating an account, placing an order, applying to sell, or otherwise using the Service, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you don't agree, don't use the Service. If you use the Service on behalf of a business, you confirm you have authority to bind that business, and "you" includes the business.

2. Who can use the Service For everyone

• You must be at least 18 years old and able to form a binding contract. The Service is intended for use in the United States.
• You must not have been previously removed from the Service for violating these Terms.
• Sellers must additionally meet the requirements in Section 6.

3. What CottageCrafted is — and isn't For everyone

CottageCrafted provides technology that lets sellers publish shops and products and lets customers place orders with them. Each order is a transaction directly between the customer and the seller. CottageCrafted is not a party to that transaction and is not the seller, manufacturer, or delivery provider of any item. We do not take possession of goods, and we do not inspect, test, guarantee or endorse any seller, product, or listing.

Sellers are independent businesses or individuals. Nothing in these Terms makes any seller our employee, agent, partner or franchisee.

4. Your account For everyone

• Give us accurate information and keep it up to date. We may ask you to verify your email address (for example, with a one-time code), and sellers must do so before applying.
• You are responsible for keeping your password confidential and for everything that happens under your account. Choose a strong password and tell us promptly at (email address appears when JavaScript is on) if you suspect unauthorized access.
• One person, one account. Don't share your account or create accounts to evade a suspension.
• One account can be used both to shop and (if approved) to sell.

5. Shopping on CottageCrafted For buyers

Sections 5.1 to 5.8 are for people who place orders.

5.1 Local orders only

Sellers on CottageCrafted serve a local area. Before ordering for pickup or delivery you will be asked to confirm that you are in the seller's local area and able to collect the order (or that your delivery address is within the seller's stated delivery area). Please only order if that is true. A seller may decline or cancel an order that cannot be fulfilled locally. Some sellers also ship; where they do, the shipping price is shown at checkout before you pay. Homemade food is never shipped, and shipping is unavailable for any order that includes it.

5.2 Placing and confirming orders

Placing an order is an offer to buy. It becomes accepted when the seller confirms it (some sellers confirm automatically). A seller may decline an order — for example if an item is unavailable — and you'll be notified. You may cancel an order yourself only while it is still pending; after that, contact the seller.

5.3 Pickup locations

For your safety and the seller's privacy, a seller's pickup address is not shown publicly. We share it with you only once the seller has confirmed your order and the payment is settled: for card orders, when you have paid; for orders paid through a payment app, when the seller marks your payment received; and for orders you will pay in person, when the seller confirms the order, which is the seller's choice. We send it by email and show it in your order history. Please keep it to yourself and use it only to collect your order.

5.4 Prices and payment

Prices are set by sellers and shown in U.S. dollars. Depending on the seller, you may be able to pay (a) in person at pickup or delivery, (b) through an app such as Venmo or Cash App by sending money directly to the seller, or (c) by card through our payment processor, Stripe.

5.5 Delivery fees and taxes

Some sellers charge a delivery fee, which is shown before you place the order. Sales tax may apply to your purchase; where we are required to collect it, it will be shown at checkout. Otherwise, sellers are responsible for any tax they owe.

5.6 Problems with an order

If something is wrong with an order — it's late, missing, or not as described — contact the seller first, using the details on your order or the "Contact seller" form on their page. Refunds, replacements and returns are decided by the seller under the law that applies to them. We may (but are not obliged to) help mediate, and we may act against sellers who repeatedly fail their customers.

5.7 Food, allergens and health

Many items sold here are handmade, home-produced or small-batch foods, which may be made in kitchens that are not subject to routine inspection and that handle common allergens (such as milk, eggs, wheat, tree nuts, peanuts, soy, fish, shellfish and sesame). CottageCrafted does not verify ingredients, allergen statements, or food-safety practices. If you have an allergy or dietary restriction, ask the seller directly before you order and rely on your own judgment.

5.8 Meeting in person

Pickups and deliveries involve meeting or interacting with another person. Use ordinary common sense: arrange pickups at reasonable hours, tell someone where you're going if you feel unsure, and leave if you feel uncomfortable. We are not responsible for the conduct of any seller or customer.

6. Selling on CottageCrafted For sellers

This section is for sellers. It applies in addition to the rest of the Terms if you apply to sell or sell on the Service (the "Seller Terms"). If you only shop, it doesn't apply to you.

6.1 Applying and approval

You must apply and be approved before you can list products. We can approve, decline, limit or revoke seller access at our discretion — for example if an application is incomplete, if you can't lawfully sell what you offer, or if customers report problems.

6.1a Homemade food is pickup or hand-delivery only

Homemade food sold under a state cottage food law may be sold only for pickup or hand delivery, never shipped. Sellers must mark such items as "homemade food" when listing them, and CottageCrafted will not offer shipping on an order that includes them. Marking items correctly is the seller's responsibility.

6.2 You are responsible for legal compliance

You are solely responsible for knowing and following every law and rule that applies to your business and products, and for holding every license, permit, registration and insurance policy they require. This commonly includes:

• Cottage-food, home-kitchen, and food-safety rules of your state, county and city, including any registration, kitchen inspection, sales-volume limits, permitted product types, safe-handling and food-handler requirements;
• Labeling and allergen disclosure requirements for anything you sell to be eaten or used on the body;
• business licenses, zoning and home-occupation rules, and any required health-department approvals;
• consumer-protection, advertising, product-safety and intellectual-property laws; and
• collecting, reporting and paying sales and income taxes as required.

We do not review, approve or verify your compliance. Being approved on CottageCrafted is not a statement that you or your products comply with any law. You confirm that everything you list can lawfully be sold by you where you sell it.

6.3 Your listings

• Listings, photos, prices, ingredients, allergen information, lead times and availability must be accurate, current and not misleading, and you must own or have the right to use your photos and text.
• Keep stock levels and "made to order" lead times honest. Remove or mark items unavailable when you can't supply them.
• Don't list prohibited items (Section 9).

6.4 Handling orders

• Respond to new orders promptly. Confirm orders you can fulfill and decline those you can't; don't leave customers waiting.
• Fulfill confirmed orders as described, on time, and only within the local area you have told customers you serve (your city, pickup location, and delivery radius).
• Your pickup address is shared with a customer only once you have confirmed their order and the payment is settled (a card order is settled when the buyer pays; a payment-app order when you mark it paid; for orders paid in person, when you confirm it, so you choose when it goes out). Only enter an address you are comfortable sharing with those customers. Post your pickup times and say whether you meet buyers or leave orders for them. We recommend a location that is safe for public pickup.
• You are responsible for packaging, labeling, safe handling, delivery, and resolving customer complaints, refunds and returns.
• You may only use customers' personal information (name, contact details, address) to fulfill their order and communicate about it, and must not sell it, add it to marketing lists without permission, or share it.

6.5 Fees

CottageCrafted may charge a platform fee on orders. The fee that applies to you is set when your account is approved and can be updated by us on reasonable notice; the fee applying to your account is visible to you and we will tell you how and when it is collected. Fees are separate from any fees charged by payment providers such as Stripe. You agree to pay all fees that apply to you.

6.6 Getting paid

You may accept payment in person, through payment apps, or by card through Stripe where you have connected a Stripe account. If you connect Stripe, you also agree to Stripe's terms (including the Stripe Connected Account Agreement and Stripe Services Agreement). Stripe, not CottageCrafted, holds your funds and verifies your identity and banking details; we don't see or store your bank details. CottageCrafted is not a bank or money transmitter and does not hold seller funds.

6.6a Card payments, refunds, Stripe fees and chargebacks

Card payments are taken directly on your own connected Stripe account, with you as the seller of record. As a result, and to the fullest extent the law allows:

• Stripe fees are yours. Stripe charges its processing fee to your Stripe account on every card payment. Stripe does not return that fee when a payment is refunded or an order is cancelled or rejected, so the cost of the fee on a refunded order is yours.
• Refunds are paid by you. If an order is rejected, cancelled, or refunded for any reason, the refund comes out of your Stripe balance. We may issue that refund from your Stripe account on your behalf (for example when you reject a paid order), and we will return our own platform fee on a fully refunded order.
• Chargebacks and disputes are yours. If a customer disputes a card payment with their bank, the disputed amount, any Stripe dispute fee (currently charged per dispute), and any resulting loss are your responsibility, and you are expected to respond to the dispute in your Stripe account before the deadline.
• We may recover amounts you owe us. If we pay or are charged any of the amounts above on your behalf, you agree to reimburse us promptly, and we may deduct them from fees or payouts we hold for you or recover them by any lawful means.

6.7 Taxes

You are responsible for determining, collecting where required, reporting and paying all taxes on your sales. If a law requires us, as a marketplace, to collect or report taxes on your behalf, we may do so and you agree to cooperate.

Sales tax collected through CottageCrafted. Where we collect sales tax on an order, it is shown to the buyer at checkout and is kept by us (it is not paid out to you) so that we can report and remit it to the state. You must not charge the buyer that same tax again. Whether an item is taxable is for you to set correctly on each product. Sales tax on payments made outside CottageCrafted (in person or through a payment app) is not collected by us, and remains your responsibility.

6.8 Independent seller

You are an independent seller. You set your own products, prices, hours and service area, subject to these Terms. You are responsible for your own insurance and for any injury, illness or loss caused by your products or conduct.

6.9 Seller agreement to Terms

When you apply to sell you are asked to confirm you have read and agree to these Seller Terms; we record that confirmation.

7. Reviews For everyone

7.1 If you are a buyer For buyers

After an order is completed, you can leave two separate kinds of reviews: product reviews (about the item itself) and seller reviews (about communication, timeliness and overall experience). Reviews must be honest, based on your own genuine experience, and relevant. Don't post reviews for orders you didn't make or accept anything in exchange for a particular review. Your name is shown next to your review.

7.2 If you are a seller For sellers

Reviews of your shop and products are written by your customers. Don't offer anything in exchange for a particular review, write reviews of your own shop, or pressure customers to change or remove theirs. We may remove reviews that break these Terms (for example, they are abusive, discriminatory, false, or reveal private information), but we don't otherwise edit them and can't remove a review just because it is critical.

8. Your content For everyone

For buyers this means your reviews and messages; for sellers it also means your shop profile, photos and listings.

You keep ownership of the text, photos, logos, listings, reviews and other material you submit ("Your Content"). To operate the Service, you give us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, display, reproduce (including resizing and compressing images), and distribute Your Content on and through the Service — including through our image-hosting and content-delivery providers — for as long as it is on the Service and for a reasonable time afterward (for example in backups). You promise that you have the right to submit Your Content and that it doesn't infringe anyone's rights or break the law. We may remove content that violates these Terms or the law.

If you believe content on the Service infringes your copyright, email (email address appears when JavaScript is on) with your contact details, a description of the work, the location of the material, and a statement that you have a good-faith belief the use is unauthorized and that your notice is accurate. We may remove the material and terminate repeat infringers.

9. Acceptable use and prohibited items For everyone

9.1 Everyone For everyone

You agree not to:

• break any law or use the Service for anything unlawful, fraudulent or deceptive;
• harass, threaten, discriminate against, or impersonate anyone;
• send spam, or use the contact form or order notes to send marketing or anything unrelated to a genuine inquiry;
• collect other users' information, scrape the Service, or use bots without our permission;
• probe, attack, overload, or try to bypass the security of the Service, including rate limits and verification steps;
• manipulate ratings or reviews;
• upload malicious code or images containing hidden or harmful content.

9.2 Sellers also must not For sellers

• list items we prohibit: alcohol, tobacco/vaping products, cannabis or controlled substances, weapons or ammunition, recalled or unsafe products, counterfeit or stolen goods, adult content, live animals, prescription or over-the-counter drugs and medical claims, and anything that requires a license you do not hold;
• take transactions off the Service to avoid fees where fees apply to you;
• use customers' information for anything other than fulfilling their order (see Section 6.4).

9.3 Buyers also must not For buyers

• order items you don't intend to collect or pay for, or place orders to learn a seller's address;
• share a seller's pickup address with anyone else or use it for any purpose other than collecting your order.

10. Messages and communications For everyone

Buyers: the "Contact seller" form relays your message and your email address to the seller so they can reply to you directly. Sellers: you receive those messages and new-order emails at the address on your shop. Order messages: the buyer and seller on an order can message each other from the order page; each message is also emailed to the other person, and only the two of them (and us, if we need to look into a problem) can read it. Keep them about the order. Everyone: we send service emails such as order confirmations, pickup details, order updates, verification codes, and security notices; you can't opt out of these while you have an account. We don't send marketing email unless you agree to it.

11. Third-party services For everyone

The Service relies on third parties, including payment processing (Stripe), email delivery, hosting and content delivery, and links to maps. They have their own terms and privacy practices, and we're not responsible for them or for any outage or error they cause.

12. Our property For everyone

The Service, its design, software, and the CottageCrafted name and logo are owned by us or our licensors and protected by law. We give you a limited, revocable, non-transferable license to use the Service as these Terms allow. You may not copy, modify, reverse-engineer or resell the Service. If you send us feedback or suggestions, we may use them without obligation to you.

13. Suspension and termination For everyone

You may stop using the Service and ask us to close your account at any time by emailing (email address appears when JavaScript is on). We may suspend or terminate your access, remove listings or content, or cancel orders, with or without notice, if we believe you have broken these Terms or the law, put others at risk, or if required to protect the Service. Orders already confirmed remain your responsibility to fulfill or resolve. Sections that by their nature should survive termination will do so.

14. Disclaimers For everyone

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, secure or error-free, that any listing or seller is accurate, safe or lawful, or that any product will meet your expectations. Products are sold by independent sellers and we make no representation about their quality, safety, legality or ingredients. Some jurisdictions don't allow certain disclaimers, so some of these may not apply to you.

15. Limitation of liability For everyone

To the fullest extent permitted by law, CottageCrafted, its owners, officers, employees and contractors will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue, data or goodwill, arising from your use of (or inability to use) the Service or from any transaction, product, or interaction between users — including illness, injury, allergic reaction, property damage, or a seller's or customer's conduct — even if we were told such damages were possible. Our total liability for any claim relating to the Service is limited to the greater of (a) the fees you paid to us in the twelve months before the claim arose or (b) one hundred U.S. dollars ($100). Some jurisdictions don't allow these limits, so they may not fully apply to you.

16. Indemnification For everyone

You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless CottageCrafted and its owners, officers, employees and contractors from claims, losses, liabilities and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of Your Content, your products or services, your violation of these Terms or the law, or your dealings with other users. This matters most for sellers, who are responsible for the goods they sell and any harm they cause.

17. Disputes For everyone

Talk to us first. If you have a dispute with us, email (email address appears when JavaScript is on) and give us 30 days to try to resolve it informally before starting any formal proceeding.

Buyers and sellers: a dispute about an order is between the buyer and the seller. Buyers should contact the seller first (Section 5.6); sellers should respond promptly and fairly (Section 6.4). We're happy to help where we can but are not obliged to resolve it.

Governing law and venue. These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. Any lawsuit relating to these Terms or the Service must be brought in the state or federal courts located in Rusk County, Texas, and you consent to their jurisdiction — except that either of us may bring an individual claim in small-claims court in a proper location.

18. Changes to the Service and these Terms For everyone

We may change or discontinue parts of the Service at any time. We may update these Terms; when we make material changes we will update the date above and, where appropriate, notify you by email or on the Service. Continuing to use the Service after a change takes effect means you accept the updated Terms.

19. General For everyone

• Entire agreement. These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between you and us about the Service.
• Severability. If a part of these Terms is unenforceable, the rest stays in effect.
• No waiver. Not enforcing a provision isn't a waiver of it.
• Assignment. You may not transfer your rights under these Terms; we may assign ours, for example in a sale of the business.
• Notices. We may notify you by email at the address on your account or by posting on the Service.
• Force majeure. We're not liable for delays or failures caused by events beyond our reasonable control.

20. Contact us For everyone

CottageCrafted, operated by A Plan in Place LLC
Email: (email address appears when JavaScript is on)