Merchant Agreement

1. You are the seller

Your shop is your business. You set the prices, you own the stock, you make the sale, and the contract with the customer is yours. Pata gives you a storefront, a till and a set of records - it does not sell anything and does not take a cut of what you sell.

You are responsible for having the licences your trade requires, and for anything you are legally obliged to tell a customer before they buy.

2. Your storefront must be true

• List only goods you actually have or can get, at the price you will honour.
• Every item needs a description. A photograph of something else is a misrepresentation, not a placeholder.
• Keep stock levels current. A customer who reserves something you do not have has been misled by your shop, not by Pata.
• Pin your shop where it actually is. The pin is what sends customers to your door and what delivery distances are calculated from - a wrong pin sends people somewhere else with your name on it.

3. Getting paid

Customers pay you directly, on the Till, Paybill, Pochi, Airtel or bank details you publish. Check they are correct: money sent to a number you mistyped has gone to whoever owns that number, and Pata cannot recover it.

A sale rung up on credit is recorded as money owed, not money taken. It stops counting as revenue - in your ledger, your P&L, and your credit score - until you mark it paid.

4. Tax is yours

eTIMS is off until you switch it on, because most traders here are below the VAT registration threshold or sell zero-rated goods. Switching it on is a declaration that your shop is VAT-registered under the KRA PIN you provide.

• With it off, no VAT is charged at your till and nothing is filed with KRA.
• With it on, your till charges VAT at your rate and every sale is submitted for fiscalisation.
• Deciding whether you should be registered is between you and KRA. Pata does not advise on it and does not file on your behalf beyond the receipts you generate here.
• Your sales records are kept for 7 years so you can answer a KRA query.

5. Reservations and delivery

• Answer reservation requests. Stock is only held once you confirm, so an unanswered request helps nobody.
• A confirmed reservation takes that stock out of what your till can sell, so it cannot be sold twice.
• If you offer delivery, the areas and charges you set are what the customer is quoted, and what you are agreeing to.

6. Loyalty points are a promise you make

If you switch loyalty on, the points your customers earn are a debt of goodwill against your own margin - Pata does not fund them. Set the rate knowing what it costs you; the profile screen shows that in shillings before you save it.

Switching the scheme off stops new points accruing. Balances customers have already earned are theirs, and refusing to honour them is a matter between you and your customer.

7. Messaging your customers

• SMS and WhatsApp broadcasts go to real people who gave you their number for a purpose. Send what they would expect.
• You need a lawful basis for marketing, and must stop when someone asks you to.
• Costs of bulk messaging are yours.
• Sending to numbers you obtained some other way, or that you invented, is grounds for suspension.

8. Ratings, complaints and warnings

You cannot rate or report shops from a merchant account - not your own, and not a competitor's. Ratings come from customers, and a marketplace where traders rate each other stops telling anybody anything.

If a customer reports your shop, a moderator reads it. They may dismiss it, hide the listing, send you a written warning, or suspend the shop. A warning names what is wrong and stays on your record; it is the step before suspension, and most complaints are settled by fixing the thing named in it.

9. Your branches

Branches you add trade under your business and your tax registration. Whoever you give a branch login to can ring up sales and see that branch's books, and what they do there is your responsibility, so suspend or close a branch you no longer run. Assisted-onboarded accounts start on a temporary password that must be changed before anything else works.

10. Leaving

You can close your shop at any time. Your storefront comes down; your sales records are kept for the tax period. Outstanding reservations should be settled or cancelled first - customers are expecting them.

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