1. Who we are
BidhaaLink ("we", "us", "our") operates a multi-vendor online marketplace connecting customers in Kenya with independent businesses that sell products on the platform. The marketplace is available at the BidhaaLink site and through any subdomain or mobile view we operate.
BidhaaLink is operated by BidhaaLink. When you create an account, place an order, list a product, or browse the marketplace as a guest, you enter into a legal relationship with BidhaaLink, and — where you place or receive an order — with the individual business you buy from or sell to.
The way we handle personal data is explained in a separate document. Read it alongside these Terms: Privacy Policy — Who we are.
2. Definitions
- Marketplace
- The BidhaaLink website and any related services that let customers discover businesses, browse products, place orders, pay, chat, and track deliveries.
- Customer
- Any person who creates a customer account or places an order through the Marketplace.
- Business
- An independent vendor that registers an account on the Marketplace to list and sell its own products. Each business is operated by a Business Admin.
- Business Admin
- The individual who registers and manages a business account on behalf of that business.
- Visitor
- Any person who accesses the Marketplace without signing in.
- Order
- A request placed by a Customer to purchase one or more products from a single Business through the Marketplace.
- Business Rules
- The delivery, return, replacement, refund, cancellation, and payment rules that a specific Business sets for its own orders. Business Rules are visible on the Business's profile and are confirmed to the Customer at the moment of checkout.
3. Eligibility and accounts
You must be at least 18 years old to create an account, place an order, or operate a business on BidhaaLink. By creating an account, you confirm that you meet this requirement.
When you register, we record that you accepted these Terms and the Privacy Policy. The record includes the date, the version, and basic technical information about the device you used. See Privacy Policy — Acceptance records.
You must provide accurate information when you register. If your details change, you are responsible for keeping them up to date. You are responsible for the security of your password and for every action taken through your account. See Privacy Policy — What we collect.
If you discover unauthorised access to your account, contact us immediately at georgebabji1220@gmail.com. We will freeze the session and help you recover the account.
We may suspend or refuse an account at any time if we have reasonable grounds to believe the account is being used fraudulently, illegally, or in a way that harms other users or the Marketplace. See Privacy Policy — Account deletion.
4. Our role in the marketplace
BidhaaLink is a marketplace. We provide the platform that lets a Customer find a Business, view its products, place an order, pay, chat, and receive the order. We are not the seller of the products listed by any Business. The contract of sale for a product is between the Customer and the specific Business that listed that product.
The Business is responsible for the accuracy of its listings, the quality and legality of its products, its pricing, its stock, its packaging, and the fulfilment of its own orders. We are not able to inspect every product, and we do not manufacture, store, or ship the products listed by a Business.
We are responsible for the platform itself: the website, the ordering flow, the payment rails we operate, the messaging system, the dispute escalation path, and the security of the account data stored on the platform. For the categories of data we handle, and who we share it with, see Privacy Policy — Who we share with.
5. Customer obligations
As a Customer, you agree to:
- Provide accurate information when you register and when you place an order, including your phone number and delivery details.
- Keep your login credentials confidential.
- Pay for any order you place, using one of the payment methods the Business accepts.
- Be available to receive the order at the address or pickup point you agreed with the Business.
- Treat Businesses and their staff with respect in chat and in any dispute.
- Not misuse the platform: no fraud, no abuse of promo codes or refunds, no uploading of unlawful content, no attempt to bypass the platform to transact off it to avoid Business Rules.
- Comply with the specific Business Rules attached to the Business you are buying from, including the return window, replacement window, and cancellation window that the Business has set.
The categories of data we store about you, and why, are explained in the Privacy Policy — What we collect.
6. Orders
An order can only contain products from one Business. If you want to buy from two businesses, you must place two separate orders. This is because each Business fulfils its own orders under its own Business Rules.
When you place an order, the Marketplace will show you the total, the delivery method, the delivery fee (if any), and the Business Rules that apply. You confirm those details when you press Place Order.
A Business may accept, adjust, or cancel an order if a product is out of stock, if the delivery address is outside its delivery area, if the price was displayed incorrectly, or if the order appears fraudulent. If an order is cancelled by the Business before it is paid, any amount you have already paid is refunded.
Orders that are placed but not paid within the time window set by the Business (and, in any case, no later than 24 hours after the order is created) are automatically cancelled by the platform, and any reserved stock is released.
If you do not confirm receipt of an order after it has been delivered or picked up, the platform automatically marks it as completed 7 days after delivery, so the Business can close its books on the order. The data that makes up an order — items, amounts, delivery address, chat messages — and how long it is kept is described in Privacy Policy — Order data.
7. Delivery and pickup
Each Business sets its own delivery rules. Before you confirm an order, the Business's delivery options, delivery fees, delivery areas, delivery days, delivery time slots, and estimated delivery time are shown to you at checkout.
Depending on the Business, delivery may take any of these forms:
- Delivery — the Business brings the order to the address or meeting point you gave.
- Pickup — you collect the order from the Business's shop or from a pickup point the Business has named.
- Chat to arrange — you and the Business agree the delivery or pickup arrangement in the order chat. Anything you agree in that chat becomes part of the order.
Delivery fees may be a fixed amount, a per-kilometre rate, a distance-based tier, or free of charge. A Business may also offer free delivery above a minimum order value. The applicable fee is always shown to you before you confirm the order, and it is the Business that sets it.
If the Business offers free delivery, the Business decides the conditions (for example, free within a certain area, or above a certain order value). If the Business does not offer delivery, only pickup or chat-to-arrange is available, and the platform will tell you so before you place the order.
Every order has a unique delivery code. This code is used by the Business and by you to confirm that the correct order was handed over at the correct moment. Keep the code until the order is in your hands.
The delivery address and any delivery coordinates you provide are used only to fulfil your order. See Privacy Policy — Location data.
8. Returns, replacements, refunds, cancellations
Each Business sets its own rules for returns, replacements, refunds, and cancellations. The rules that apply to your order are the ones configured by the Business you are buying from and shown to you at checkout, and they may differ from one Business to another on the same Marketplace.
The Business Rules that a Business can configure include:
- Whether returns are accepted at all.
- The number of days after delivery during which a return can be requested.
- The condition a returned product must be in (for example, unopened, unused, with original packaging).
- Whether a restocking fee applies, and if so, the percentage.
- Who pays the return shipping (the Customer or the Business).
- The number of hours after an order during which a replacement can be requested.
- Whether replacements are allowed at all.
- The number of hours after an order during which a cancellation can be made by the Customer.
- Whether refunds are allowed, and if so, how they are processed.
- Whether re-orders are allowed.
If the Customer requests a return, replacement, or refund, the request is submitted to the Business (and, where the platform is involved, to the BidhaaLink team) through the order chat. The Business reviews the request against its own Business Rules. If the Business approves the request, the Customer and the Business arrange the logistics.
If the Customer and the Business cannot agree, the Customer can ask BidhaaLink to review the matter. BidhaaLink may, but is not obliged to, act on the Customer's behalf to try to resolve the dispute. Where BidhaaLink does act, it will apply the Business Rules the Business set at the time of the order, and it will act in good faith.
Where a refund is approved, the refund is made to the original payment method where the payment rail supports it. Where the original payment method does not support a refund (for example, cash paid on delivery), the Business and the Customer arrange the refund directly. The record of the return or refund is kept as part of the order. See Privacy Policy — Order data.
9. Payments
Payments on BidhaaLink are processed through third-party payment providers. The methods currently supported are:
- M-Pesa (Safaricom), including Paybill, Till, and Pochi la Biashara where the Business has configured them.
- Airtel Money (Airtel), where the Business has enabled it.
- PayPal, where the Business has enabled it.
- Bank transfer, where the Business has enabled it and the Customer completes the transfer.
- Payment on Delivery, where the Business has enabled it. In that case the Customer pays the delivery agent or the Business at the moment of delivery, and may be asked to accept a payment-on-delivery agreement before the order is placed.
The Business chooses which payment methods it accepts. The methods available for your order are shown to you at checkout. We do not hold customer funds on the Customer's behalf; when a payment is made, the funds go to the Business's configured account on the payment provider's rails.
If a payment is declined by the provider, or if the provider reverses a payment, the order will not be fulfilled and the Business will be notified. If you have paid and the order is not fulfilled, the amount is refunded through the same payment method where the provider supports it. The payment metadata we store, and how long we keep it, is in Privacy Policy — Payment data and Privacy Policy — Third-party services.
Prices, delivery fees, and any discounts are set by the Business. Prices are shown in Kenyan Shillings unless the payment provider settles in another currency, in which case the currency is shown at checkout.
10. Business obligations
If you register a Business on BidhaaLink, you agree to:
- Provide accurate information about your business, your products, your pricing, and your Business Rules.
- Keep your product listings, stock levels, prices, and Business Rules up to date.
- Describe what you sell in the "What You Sell" section of your business profile, so customers can find your shop through search.
- Honour the Business Rules that were in force at the moment a Customer placed an order with your Business. You may change your Business Rules at any time, but a change does not apply retroactively to orders that were already placed.
- Comply with all Kenyan laws and regulations that apply to the products you sell, including any licensing, tax, health, safety, and consumer-protection requirements.
- Not use the Marketplace to sell prohibited items (see Section 11).
- Respond to customer messages and disputes promptly and in good faith.
- Keep your contact email and phone number current, because customers and BidhaaLink will use them to reach you about orders.
The categories of data we store about your business are described in Privacy Policy — Business data.
11. Prohibited items and conduct
You may not list, sell, buy, or attempt to buy through BidhaaLink any of the following:
- Anything that is illegal under Kenyan law or the law of the place where it is being sold or delivered.
- Counterfeit, pirated, or stolen goods.
- Weapons, ammunition, and explosives, unless the seller holds a licence that the law requires and the sale is lawful.
- Illegal drugs and controlled substances.
- Live animals, protected wildlife, and wildlife products.
- Human organs, human tissue, and human remains.
- Pornography and sexually explicit material, and anything that sexualises minors.
- Prescription medicines, unless the seller is licensed to dispense them and the sale is lawful.
- Hazardous chemicals, radioactive material, and other dangerous goods that cannot be legally shipped or delivered.
- Personal data of any third party, obtained or offered without that party's lawful consent.
- Anything designed to defraud: fake documents, forged certificates, unauthorised access tools, malware.
You also agree not to:
- Post content that is defamatory, hateful, harassing, or that incites violence.
- Impersonate another person or another business.
- Scrape, crawl, or overload the Marketplace, or attempt to breach its security.
- Manipulate reviews, ratings, prices, or the search results.
- Attempt to move a transaction off the Marketplace to avoid Business Rules or platform fees.
We may remove any listing and suspend any account that breaches this Section. Where the law requires, we may report the matter to the relevant authority.
12. Ratings and reviews
Customers may rate and review products and businesses they have bought from. Reviews must reflect the Customer's genuine experience. Reviews must not contain unlawful content, personal data of a third party, or content that breaches Section 11.
We may remove a review that we determine, in good faith, breaches these Terms. Reviews remain the responsibility of the person who wrote them. Reviews are stored and displayed as part of the product or business record. See Privacy Policy — Reviews data.
13. Intellectual property
The BidhaaLink name, logo, and the design of the Marketplace belong to us. You may not use them without our prior written permission, except to refer to the Marketplace factually.
When you upload content to BidhaaLink — product photos, videos, business logos, product descriptions, chat messages — you keep ownership of that content. You grant BidhaaLink a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, and display that content on the Marketplace and in the ordinary operation of the Marketplace, for as long as your account exists and for the retention period described in the Privacy Policy.
You confirm that you have the right to upload every piece of content you upload, and that the content does not infringe any third party's rights. The way we handle uploaded media, and how long we keep it, is described in Privacy Policy — Your rights.
14. Third-party services
BidhaaLink relies on the following third-party services to operate:
- Safaricom — for M-Pesa payments.
- Airtel — for Airtel Money payments.
- PayPal — for PayPal payments.
- Cloudinary — for hosting uploaded images and videos.
- Google (Gmail SMTP) and SendGrid — for sending transactional email.
- OpenStreetMap Nominatim and CartoDB — for map display and address lookup.
Each of these providers has its own terms and privacy policy, which apply to the portion of the service they provide. Our use of them, and the categories of data each one receives, is described in Privacy Policy — Third-party services.
15. Disclaimers
The Marketplace is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis. To the fullest extent permitted by Kenyan law, BidhaaLink makes no warranty that the Marketplace will be uninterrupted, error-free, or free of harmful components, or that any product listed on it will meet your expectations.
We are not the manufacturer, importer, or seller of any product listed by a Business. We do not guarantee the quality, safety, legality, or fitness for purpose of any product. That responsibility belongs to the Business that listed the product. If you have a dispute about a product, you raise it with the Business under the Business Rules and, where relevant, escalate it through the platform as described in Section 8.
16. Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent permitted by Kenyan law, BidhaaLink, its team, and its suppliers will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any loss of profit, revenue, data, or goodwill, arising out of or in connection with your use of the Marketplace.
To the fullest extent permitted by Kenyan law, BidhaaLink's total aggregate liability for any claim arising out of or in connection with the Marketplace is limited to the amount of the specific order that gave rise to the claim.
Nothing in these Terms excludes any liability that cannot be excluded under Kenyan law, including liability for fraud, wilful misconduct, or death or personal injury caused by our negligence.
17. Indemnity
You agree to indemnify and hold harmless BidhaaLink, its team, and its suppliers from any claim, loss, liability, or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of:
- Your breach of these Terms.
- Your breach of any Business Rules applicable to your order.
- Any content you upload to the Marketplace.
- Your breach of any law or third-party right.
18. Suspension and termination
We may suspend or close your account if you breach these Terms, if we are required to do so by law, or if we have reasonable grounds to believe your account is being used in a way that harms other users or the Marketplace.
You may close your account at any time. Customer accounts are scheduled for deletion with a 30-day grace period, during which you can log in to cancel the deletion. Business accounts are scheduled for deletion with a 60-day grace period, and the business is hidden from the Marketplace during that period. When the grace period ends, the account is anonymised rather than hard-deleted so that orders and receipts remain accurate for the other party.
The exact retention and anonymisation rules are in Privacy Policy — Account deletion and Privacy Policy — Retention.
19. Governing law and disputes
These Terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of Kenya. The courts of Nairobi, Kenya, have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising out of or in connection with these Terms or your use of the Marketplace, unless a mandatory provision of Kenyan law gives you the right to bring a claim in another forum.
Before starting formal proceedings, you agree to try to resolve the dispute by contacting us at georgebabji1220@gmail.com and giving us a reasonable opportunity to respond. For disputes about a specific order, you should first raise the matter with the Business under the Business Rules and, if unresolved, escalate it through the platform as described in Section 8.
20. Changes to these Terms
We may update these Terms from time to time. When we do, we will change the version number and the effective date at the top of this page. If the change is material, we will notify you in-app or by email before it takes effect. If you continue to use the Marketplace after a change takes effect, you accept the updated Terms. If you do not accept them, you may close your account before the change takes effect.
21. Contact
For any question about these Terms, or to raise a dispute:
For privacy complaints, see Privacy Policy — Contact.