Seller Terms

1. Who can sell

You must be 18 or older and legally able to sell the goods or services you list in Tanzania. If you are selling on behalf of a company, you confirm you are authorised to bind it to these terms.

You must hold whatever licence, permit or registration your trade requires. SokoVerse does not obtain these for you and cannot substitute for them.

2. Your storefront and your listings

Your storefront is your shop window and buyers judge SokoVerse by it. Keep it true.

• Describe each item accurately, including condition, and say if it is used, refurbished or a replica.
• Use your own photographs of the actual item wherever you can. Stock images must not misrepresent what a buyer will receive.
• Show the real, total price in Tanzanian Shillings. Do not advertise a price you will not honour, and do not use a struck-through 'original price' that was never charged.
• Keep availability current. Remove or mark items you can no longer supply.
• Put each item in the right category. Miscategorising to reach more people is spam.

3. What you may not sell

The prohibited list in section 7 of the Terms of Use applies in full. In short: nothing illegal in Tanzania, no weapons, no drugs, no wildlife products, no counterfeits, no stolen goods, no prescription medicines, no identity documents.

Some categories need paperwork before they may be listed — food and drink, cosmetics, electronics requiring type approval, and anything the Tanzania Bureau of Standards or TMDA regulates. We may ask you to produce it.

4. The sale is yours

When a buyer contacts you, the contract is between the two of you. You are responsible for agreeing the price, taking payment, delivering the goods, and handling returns, refunds and warranty claims.

You must honour the consumer rights Tanzanian law gives your buyers, including for goods that are faulty or not as described. Publish your returns policy on your storefront so buyers know where they stand.

5. The verified badge

A verified badge means we have checked specific details — that the business exists, that its contact details reach a real person, and that its documents match what it told us. It does not mean we endorse the goods or guarantee the service.

Verification can be withdrawn if the details change, if the checks turn out to be wrong, or if the pattern of reports against a storefront gives us reason to look again.

6. Ratings, reviews and comments

Ratings on SokoVerse come from buyers, not from sellers and not from us. You may not write your own reviews, pay for reviews, trade reviews with other sellers, or pressure a buyer into changing one.

You may reply to any review of your business, and you should — a calm reply to a hard review persuades more people than the review itself.

Attempting to manipulate ratings is treated as fraud and will cost you your storefront.

7. Your buyers' data

When a buyer gives you their phone number, address or anything else, you become responsible for that data under the Personal Data Protection Act, 2022 — not us.

Use it only to complete the sale. Do not add buyers to marketing lists without their consent, do not sell or pass on their details, and delete what you no longer need. If you process personal data at scale, you may need to register with the Personal Data Protection Commission yourself.

8. Fees and taxes

Listing on SokoVerse is free during early access. If we introduce fees, commission or paid promotion, we will publish the terms and give at least 30 days' notice before they apply to you. Nothing will ever be charged to you without your agreement.

Taxes are yours. You are responsible for registering with the Tanzania Revenue Authority where required, issuing receipts, and accounting for VAT, income tax and any other duty on your sales.

9. Suspension and removal

We may remove a listing, hide a storefront or close a seller account where these terms are broken, where reports show a consistent pattern of harm to buyers, or where we are required to by law.

Except in serious cases, we will tell you what went wrong and give you a chance to put it right. You can appeal any decision by writing to customerCare@sokoverse.co.tz.

10. Closing your storefront

You may close your storefront at any time. Your listings come down; your obligations to buyers who have already dealt with you do not.

Ask us and we will export your catalogue for you. It is your work and you should be able to take it with you.