Terms of service

Noques is operated by IDK Solutions. These terms apply to everybody who uses the marketplace — shoppers, vendors and anybody browsing without an account. Using the site or the app means accepting them.

Vendors are additionally bound by the selling guidelines. Where the two differ on a point of conduct, the guidelines are the more specific statement and apply.

Noques is a marketplace. Vendors list their own goods, set their own prices, and sell those goods to you directly. Noques provides the storefront, the basket, the checkout and the payout machinery; it does not own, stock, handle, inspect or sell anything listed on it.

The contract of sale is between you and the vendor. That is not a disclaimer dressed up as a definition — it determines who owes you the goods, who is responsible if they are defective, and who a claim under the Consumer Protection Act lies against.

Noques does act as the vendor’s agent for collecting payment. A customer who has paid Noques for an order has discharged their payment obligation to that vendor, whatever happens between Noques and the vendor afterwards.

You need an account to buy or sell, and you are responsible for what happens under it. Tell us promptly if you believe somebody else has access to it.

A vendor account cannot be created by signing up. An application is submitted and a person reviews it before a storefront exists; the database rules refuse a client-created vendor document outright. An application may be declined without a reason being given.

An account may be suspended for anything in the selling guidelines or in section 7 below. Where a suspended vendor has a positive wallet balance, that balance remains theirs and is paid out once any dispute over it is resolved.

A basket may span several vendors. On checkout it is split into one order per vendor, each priced, paid, tracked and cancellable on its own.

• Payments are processed by Yoco. Card details go to Yoco and are never received or stored by Noques.
• The minimum a checkout can be created for is R2, which is Yoco’s floor rather than a Noques fee.
• What you are charged is what was quoted. The amount requested from the provider is recorded when the checkout is created, and the confirmation is verified against that recorded figure — not against whatever the item costs by the time payment lands.
• Stock is reserved when you order and released if the order is not paid for within the reservation window.

A payment that cannot be matched to an order is not kept and not discarded: it is recorded separately and an administrator is notified so that a person accounts for it. If that has happened to you, the contact form is the fastest route.

Commission

Commission is 10% of the sale on the standard rate, deducted when the order is split rather than invoiced afterwards. Vendors in the beta and registered charities pay less; the current rates are on the pricing page, which reads them from the same configuration that the split does. There is no listing fee, no monthly fee and nothing payable in a period with no sales.

A rate change affecting you will be notified before it takes effect and applies to orders placed after that date, never retroactively.

Your wallet and payouts

Your share of each paid order is credited to a wallet that Noques holds on your behalf and records in a single ledger. Payouts are requested, not scheduled. Nothing is swept to your bank account automatically and no balance expires.

Your listings

You warrant that you may lawfully sell what you list, that your descriptions are accurate, and that you hold the rights to the images and text you upload. You grant Noques a licence to display that material on the marketplace and in material promoting the marketplace, for as long as you list with us.

Noques may remove a listing that appears to breach this section or the selling guidelines, and will tell you why.

The detail is in the refunds and returns policy. In summary: an order a vendor has not begun preparing can be cancelled, including one vendor’s part of a larger basket, and a refund can never exceed what was actually paid on that order less anything already refunded. That ceiling is enforced when the refund is processed.

Nothing in these terms limits your rights under the Consumer Protection Act, including the right to goods of good quality and to return goods that are defective.

• Place or arrange orders that are not genuine — to move a ranking, inflate a review count, or obtain cashback.
• Ask a customer to cancel and pay outside the platform, which strips them of every protection attached to the payment record.
• List anything you may not lawfully sell, anything counterfeit, or anything needing a licence you do not hold.
• Interfere with the service — scraping beyond ordinary browsing, probing for vulnerabilities, or circumventing a rate limit or an access control.
• Impersonate another person, business or Noques itself.

If you find a security problem, report it through the contact form rather than testing how far it goes. We would rather hear from you.

Noques is not liable for the quality, safety, legality or description of goods sold by a vendor, nor for a vendor’s failure to fulfil an order. Those are the vendor’s obligations and the Consumer Protection Act addresses them directly.

For anything Noques itself is responsible for, liability is limited to the amounts you paid through the platform in the three months before the claim, except where that limit is not permitted by law — which includes death, personal injury, fraud and gross negligence.

The service is provided as it is. Noques does not promise uninterrupted availability, and does not promise that a given vendor will be open, in stock, or accepting orders at any particular time.

These terms may change. The date at the top changes with them, and a change that materially affects what you are charged or how you are paid will be notified directly rather than only appearing here. Continuing to use the marketplace after a change means accepting it.

South African law governs these terms, and the South African courts have jurisdiction. Nothing here requires you to give up a remedy you would otherwise have under the Consumer Protection Act, POPIA or the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act.

If a clause here is found unenforceable, the rest stands.

Use the contact form. It reaches a person, and including an order number where there is one gets you a useful answer considerably faster.