Terms of sale

1. About us and these terms

These terms apply when you sell items to Shellbark Trading (“we”, “us”, “our”) through this website. Shellbark Trading is the trading name of Jac Jones, a sole trader, of 60 Dunraven Road, Sketty, Swansea, SA2 9LQ. You can contact us at support@shellbarktrading.com.

Together with our privacy policy and cookie policy, they are the agreement between you and us. The version that applies to you is the one published on the day you sent your submission. If anything here is unclear, please ask us before you go ahead.

Nothing in these terms affects your legal rights as a consumer.

2. Who can sell to us

• You must be 18 or over, live in the United Kingdom, and send your items from a UK address.
• You must own the items, or have the owner's authority to sell them. If you are selling for someone else, for example as an executor or under a power of attorney, you confirm you have that authority, and we may ask to see evidence of it.
• You can sell as a private individual or as a business. Section 14 has extra terms for business sellers.

3. How selling to us works

1. You tell us about your items, with photographs, a description and an estimate of your parcel size. Valuing them is free.
2. We email you an offer, or tell you that we cannot make one.
3. To accept, you confirm the size and approximate weight of your packed parcel, and give us the bank account you want paying into.
4. If you accept, we send you a prepaid tracked postage label, or arrange delivery with you for high-value or large items.
5. You pack and post your items, ensuring that the package is within the maximum package size selected. If the package exceeds the limit selected, please contact us before shipping for adjustment.
6. We check them against your description. If they match, we pay you. If they do not, we make a revised offer, which you can accept or decline.

4. Your submission

• Tell us everything you know that affects value, including damage, repairs and missing parts, and whether an item is a copy or reproduction. Your photographs must show the actual items you are selling.
• A submission is a request for an offer. It does not commit you or us to anything.
• We may ask for more photographs or information, and we reserve the right not to make an offer without reason.
• Please do not send us anything until you have accepted an offer and have our label or agreed delivery arrangements. Section 15 explains what happens to items that arrive unexpectedly.

5. Our offer

• Our offer is based on your description and photographs, the condition you report, and what comparable items have recently sold for. It is one price for everything in your submission.
• It is valid for 7 days from the date we send it, and then lapses. Contact us if you would like a fresh offer.
• It depends on your items matching your description and photographs when they reach us (see section 9).
• It is an offer to buy, not a valuation. Please do not rely on it for insurance, probate or any other purpose.
• We do not charge fees or commission, and postage is free both ways.

6. Accepting, and changing your mind

• You accept by confirming your parcel and bank details on your offer page and clicking the accept button. That creates an agreement for us to buy your items at the offered price, subject to the check described in section 9.
• You can change your mind at any time before you post your items. Just email us. It costs you nothing, even if we have already bought your postage label.
• If we have not received your items within 30 days of sending your label, we may treat the agreement as ended.
• Because you are selling to us rather than buying from us, the legal 14-day cancellation right for online purchases does not apply.

7. Sending your items

• Use only the label we send you, for the parcel size you confirmed when accepting. Please post within 7 days of receiving it, because postage labels expire. If you need longer, ask us for a new one.
• Your parcel must be no longer than 150 cm, with length plus girth of no more than 300 cm, and weigh no more than 30 kg. If it turns out bigger or heavier than the size you chose, contact us before posting.
• Pack your items so they survive normal handling, following Royal Mail's packing guidance. Put a note inside with your reference, and do not describe valuable contents on the outside of the parcel.
• Keep your proof of postage.
• It is a criminal offence to post certain items (Postal Services Act 2000, section 85), so follow the carrier's rules on prohibited and restricted items. Phones and other devices must be posted with their batteries fitted and switched off. Never post loose or damaged lithium batteries.
• If your offer is over £2,500, or your parcel is too large to send valuable items safely, we will contact you to arrange insured delivery. Please do not post these items until we have agreed how.

8. Loss or damage in the post

• Parcels sent on our label, or by delivery we have arranged, are covered while on their way to us, up to the amount of your accepted offer and to a maximum of £2,500.
• If your parcel is lost or arrives damaged, we will make the claim with the carrier. We will require your proof of postage and any photographs of your packing.
• For a lost parcel we will pay you the amount of your accepted offer, and for a damaged one a fair amount reflecting the damage, provided you used our label, packed the items properly, kept your proof of postage and did not include anything we cannot accept. We may pay less, or nothing, if poor packing or prohibited contents caused the loss or damage.
• To claim for a lost package you are required to notify us within 14 days of posting if your tracking shows no progress, so that we can claim within the carrier's deadlines.
• We cannot cover parcels sent with postage you bought yourself, unless we agreed to it in writing beforehand.

9. Checking your items, and revised offers

• Once a package or item has arrived at our facility, it is photographed and the process of opening the package is recorded.
• We check items, normally within one working day of their arrival, and email you the result.
• If your items match your description, we pay you (see section 10).
• If they differ in a way that affects their value, we explain what we found, send you photographs, and make a revised offer for the submission. You can accept it, or decline it and have everything returned to you free on a tracked service.
• If a revised offer is rejected, the item/s are repacked either into their original packing boxes or into alternative packaging that we supply, if the original packing fails to meet Royal Mail's packing requirements.
• If you do not reply to a revised offer within 14 days, we will return your items at our cost rather than buy them.
• Responsibility for your items passes to us when they are delivered to us. Until we pay you, they remain yours, and we look after them carefully.

10. Payment and ownership

• We pay by bank transfer, normally on the working day we confirm your items match your description. Most transfers arrive within hours, but bank processing and bank holidays can cause delays.
• We only pay into a UK bank account in your name, or, if you are selling for a business or an estate, in the name of that business or estate.
• Please check your bank details carefully. If the payment details entered are incorrect, please contact us prior to payment being issued. If the payment is made to an incorrect account due to the payment details supplied being incorrect, we may be unable to re-issue payment.
• We do not deduct fees, commission or postage.
• Ownership of your items passes to us when we pay you. From then on, the sale is final.

11. Items we cannot accept

We cannot buy, and you must not send us:

• Anything you do not own outright, or that is stolen, on finance or subject to a dispute
• Firearms (including deactivated and imitation firearms), ammunition and explosives
• Knives, swords and other bladed items, unless we have agreed in writing to arrange their delivery
• Ivory and items made from protected species, unless legally exempt and documented
• Cultural objects that have been unlawfully excavated or removed
• Counterfeits, replicas presented as genuine, and counterfeit currency
• Hazardous, flammable or chemical items, and loose or damaged lithium batteries
• Perishables, and anything that is illegal to own or to send by post

Several of these are restricted by law, including by the Offensive Weapons Act 2019, the Ivory Act 2018, the Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act 2003 and the rules on posting dangerous goods.

If you send us something on this list, we will not value it. Where it is safe and lawful, we will return it to you at our cost. Otherwise we may hand it to the police or another authority, or dispose of it safely where the law allows, and we will tell you what we have done. You are responsible for any costs or losses caused by sending us an item you knew you should not send.

12. Stolen goods, fraud and identity checks

• We must not buy stolen goods, and we take steps to avoid it. We may ask for photographic identification and proof of address, ask how you came to own an item, ask for receipts or other paperwork, and check serial numbers against stolen-property registers.
• We will usually confirm your identity before paying if a sale is over £1,000, or if several sales to us add up to more than that within 12 months.
• If something gives us reasonable grounds for suspicion, we may hold your items and any payment while we make enquiries, and report the matter to the police or the National Crime Agency. The law may prevent us from telling you that we have done so.
• If an item turns out to be stolen or not yours to sell, we will not pay for it, and we will pass it to the police or its rightful owner. If we have already paid you, you must repay us.

13. Phones, tablets, laptops and other devices

• Before you post a device, back up your data, sign out of every account, turn off “Find My” or any other activation lock, remove passcodes, reset it to its factory settings, and take out any SIM and memory cards.
• A device must not be reported lost or stolen, blocked by a network, or subject to an unpaid contract or finance agreement. You agree to us checking its IMEI or serial number against industry databases.
• If a device arrives locked, blocked or not as described, we will make a revised offer or return it.
• If you leave personal data on a device, we will attempt to erase it securely without looking at it. However, we cannot guarantee that all of the data will be removed. Once the device passes to us we cannot recover any data from the device.

14. If you are selling as a business

• You confirm that you are authorised to sell the items on behalf of your business.
• We are not registered for VAT. Our offer is the full amount we will pay, including any VAT that may be due on your side. If you are VAT-registered, please account for any VAT on the sale and provide an invoice if we ask for one.
• The consumer protections in these terms apply to consumers only. For business sellers, our total liability in connection with a submission is limited to the amount of our accepted offer, except where the law does not allow this.

15. Items we cannot return to you

• If we cannot return an item, for example because two delivery attempts have failed or we cannot reach you, we will keep it safely and write to you using the contact details we have.
• If it is still unclaimed, we may give you written notice that we intend to sell it, allowing you at least three months to collect it or arrange its return, as the Torts (Interference with Goods) Act 1977 permits.
• If we then sell it, we will hold the proceeds, less our reasonable costs of storage and sale, for you to claim.
• The same applies to a parcel that reaches us with nothing to identify who sent it, once we have made reasonable efforts to find out.

16. Our responsibility to you

• While your items are in our care, we are responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result of our breaking these terms or failing to use reasonable care and skill. We are not responsible for loss that was not foreseeable.
• While your items are with us, we look after them carefully. If we lose or damage one, we will pay you the price we agreed for it or, if no price has been agreed, its fair market value.
• We are not responsible for sentimental value, or for delays or failures caused by events outside our reasonable control.
• Nothing in these terms limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything else the law does not allow us to limit.

17. Complaints

If something goes wrong, please tell us. Our complaints procedure explains how we deal with complaints and how long it takes.

18. Other important terms

• We may update these terms. Changes apply to submissions made after we publish them, never to one that is already in progress.
• If a court finds part of these terms unenforceable, the rest still applies.
• Only you and we have rights under these terms. Nobody else can enforce them.
• If we do not insist on something straight away, we can still insist on it later.
• These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and disputes may be brought in the courts of England and Wales. If you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you can also bring proceedings in your local courts, and you keep any consumer protections that apply there.

19. Using this website

• Information on this website is general guidance, not a formal valuation or professional advice.
• We try to keep the website available and accurate, but we cannot promise that it will always be available or free of errors.
• You must not misuse the website, for example by submitting false information, trying to gain unauthorised access, introducing malicious code, or copying its content in bulk.
• The website's design, text and images belong to us or are used with permission. Your photographs remain yours. You allow us to use them to value and check your items and, once we have bought them, to show them when we resell those items.