Terms and conditions

1. Who we are

The Vindesto platform, on vindesto.ro and on the hosted shops' own domains, is operated by:

In these terms, “Vindesto”, “we”, “us” and “our” mean the company above. You can write to us any time at contact@vindesto.ro. The same address is the single point of contact for authorities and for users under Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 on digital services (Articles 11 and 12). You can write in Romanian or English, and a person, not a program, reads and answers.

2. What the terms used mean

• Platform: vindesto.ro, the shops we host (at vindesto.ro/shop-name or on the shop's own domain), each shop's back office and the e-mails we send.
• Shop: the space on the platform of a business that sells online through Vindesto, with its catalogue, orders and team.
• Merchant: the company (or authorised individual) that uses a shop to sell and has a service contract with us. It is the seller towards buyers.
• Buyer: a person who visits a shop, creates an account and places orders.
• Vindesto account: the account identified by your e-mail address that you sign in to on the platform, as a buyer or as a member of a shop's team.
• Content: everything the merchant or its team adds to the shop: products, prices, descriptions, images, logos, texts and settings.

3. What these terms cover

Part one (sections 1-5, 7 and 9-12) applies to everyone using the platform: visitors, buyers with a Vindesto account and shop teams. Part two (section 6) applies only to merchants and completes the service contract signed with each of them.

Purchases in a shop follow that shop's terms and conditions, linked in the footer of each of its pages. The seller is the merchant, not Vindesto. You make the contract of sale with the shop alone: we do not set prices, collect payment or deliver the products.

How we use personal data is explained in the privacy policy, and what we keep in your browser in the cookie policy.

4. The Vindesto account

• No password. You sign in with your e-mail address and a 6-digit code we send at each sign-in. The code expires after 10 minutes, works once, and only the newest code is valid.
• One account for every shop. The same account works in any shop on Vindesto. Each shop you sign in to sees your account only for what you do there: your orders, returns, favourites and last sign-in in that shop.
• Age. The account is for people aged 16 or over. To place an order you need the capacity to make the contract (generally 18) or the consent of a parent or guardian.
• Keeping access safe. Anyone with access to your mailbox can sign in to your account, so keep it secure. Tell us at once if you think someone else is using your account.
• Correct details. Use your real name and addresses that parcels and invoices can reach.
• Deleting the account. You can delete your account yourself at any time, from My account, confirming with a code we e-mail you. We sign you out on every device, and the account is deleted after 30 days; until then you can change your mind. If you are the only owner of a shop, you first name another owner or close the shop. Orders already placed stay with the shops you bought from, for as long as the law and the contract of sale require.
• Blocking. A shop can block a buyer in its own shop for a serious reason (for example, fake orders), and we can suspend an account used for fraud, attacks or breaches of section 5. We tell you why, as section 7 describes. A blocked buyer can still return products already bought.

5. Rules of use

On the platform you may not:

• publish or sell illegal, counterfeit or dangerous products or content, or content that infringes someone else's rights (copyright, trade marks, image rights);
• mislead buyers with false prices, discounts, reviews or descriptions;
• send unsolicited messages through the platform's forms or use them to harass anyone;
• try to access accounts, shops or data that are not yours, get around security limits or overload the servers (attacks, massive automated data extraction);
• pretend to be another person or business.

6. Services for shops

This section applies only to merchants and, together with the data processing agreement and the signed order form, makes up the service contract.

6.1 How it starts

There is no self-service sign-up yet. We create the shop once we have agreed with you, through the order form, on the plan, the price and the person who will own the shop. The contract starts on the date the order form is signed and runs for an indefinite period, until either party ends it under point 6.8.

6.2 What you get

• an online shop at vindesto.ro/shop-name and, on plans that include it, on your own domain;
• the back office: products, categories, characteristics, translations, prices with VAT, stock, images, orders, customers, team and the change log;
• the cart, checkout with cash on delivery, customer accounts, favourites, search and automatic order e-mails;
• the shop's legal pages (terms and conditions, return policy, privacy, cookies), written and kept up to date by us and completed with your company details from Settings → Legal;
• the online return function the law requires (Romanian GEO 34/2014, Article 11^1), with the steps of each return in the back office, and the European Union's notice on the legal guarantee;
• support by e-mail on working days.

We do not provide payment processing, invoicing or transport. You arrange those yourself or with providers you choose.

6.3 Plans, prices and payment

• The plans (Starter, Retailer and Scale) and what each includes are described on the pricing page and in the back office under Settings → Plan. A plan's limits apply only when adding: if you move to a smaller plan, you keep everything you have.
• The price, billing period (monthly or yearly) and currency are those in the order form. We invoice at the start of each period, and payment is due [invoice payment term] after the invoice date.
• If an invoice stays unpaid, we write to you and give you at least 15 days to pay it. After that we may suspend the shop (point 6.8). Suspension deletes nothing.
• We may change prices with at least 30 days' notice, e-mailed to the owners. The new price applies from the next billing period; if you disagree, you can end the contract before then at no cost.

6.4 Your part as the seller

• You are the seller and are responsible to buyers for the products, prices, information, delivery, returns, guarantee and invoicing, as the law requires (in particular Romanian Law 365/2002, GEO 34/2014, GEO 140/2021, Law 363/2007, GD 947/2000 and Regulation (EU) 2023/988 on general product safety).
• You fill in and keep current your company details (Settings → Legal) and a contact e-mail address: they appear in the legal pages, the shop's footer and the order e-mails.
• You show real prices with VAT, and when you show a price reduction, the prior price is the lowest price applied in the previous 30 days.
• You handle the returns sent through the shop's function: you take the products back, pay the money back within the legal deadlines, and keep part of a refund or refuse a return only as far as the law allows. Vindesto provides the function, the steps and their record; the decisions and the payments are yours.
• You use customers' data only for their orders and your legal obligations, as the data controller, under the data processing agreement.
• You look after the team's accounts: invite only people you trust and remove their access when they leave.

6.5 Your content

The shop's content stays yours. You give us the non-exclusive, free right, for the term of the contract, to store, reproduce, technically adapt (for example, resize images) and display it, only as far as needed to provide the services: in the shop, in search, in e-mails and in previews. We do not use your content in promotional material without your written consent. You guarantee that you hold the rights to the content you publish.

6.6 Operation and support

We do everything we reasonably can to keep the platform running continuously, but we cannot guarantee it will never be interrupted: maintenance, failures of our providers (section 3 of the privacy policy) or attacks. We announce planned work that takes shops offline in advance. We usually answer e-mails within one working day.

Vindesto's technical team may enter your shop's back office only to help you, when you ask us or when it is needed to fix a technical problem. While we are there, the back office shows a banner, and any change appears in the shop's change log.

6.7 Liability

• We are liable for direct damage we cause you through our fault, up to the amounts you paid for the services in the 12 months before the event.
• We are not liable for lost profit, loss of customers or other indirect damage, nor for the consequences of your content or your sales.
• These limits do not apply to damage caused intentionally or through gross negligence, to harm to life, body or health, or to liability the law does not allow us to limit (Article 1355 of the Romanian Civil Code, Article 82 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679).
• You are liable to us for third-party claims (buyers, rights holders, authorities) arising from your products, content or sales.
• Neither party is liable for failing to perform because of force majeure, provided it tells the other without delay.

6.8 Suspension and ending the contract

• You can end the contract at any time, with 30 days' notice, by an e-mail from one of the shop's owners.
• You can also close the shop yourself, in the back office, under Settings → Plan → Close the shop. You then end the contract at once, without notice: the shop closes to shoppers, customers keep their orders and returns, and the data stays for 30 days, in which you can reopen the shop or ask us for the export (point 6.9). Then we delete it.
• We can also end the contract, with 30 days' notice e-mailed to the owners, without having to give a reason.
• We can suspend the shop: for non-payment, after the period in point 6.3; at once, if the shop publishes illegal content or seriously breaches section 5; or at once and for as short a time as possible, to stop an attack or a security problem. While suspended, the shop shows that it is temporarily closed, and all data stays untouched.
• We can end the contract without notice for serious or repeated breaches of these terms, after telling you why and giving you a chance to explain, unless the law requires us to act at once.
• We give written reasons for any suspension or termination related to content or to a breach of these terms, as section 7 describes.

6.9 Leaving with your data

Your shop's data is yours, and you can take it with you at any time, including to move to another provider (Regulation (EU) 2023/2854 on data, Articles 23-31):

• What you get. All of the shop's exportable data, in structured, commonly used and machine-readable formats (CSV and JSON, with files in their original format): products with prices, stock, codes, descriptions, translations, characteristics and categories; images, logos and other uploaded files; orders, with products, amounts, addresses and customer details; the shop's customer and team lists; invitations; the shop's change log; settings and company details. Only the platform's internal data is not exported: the search index, Vindesto's code and templates, and our security logs.
• How to ask. By an e-mail from an owner, at any time during the contract or when it ends. The notice to start moving to another provider is at most two months (the one in point 6.8).
• Deadlines. We make the export available within 30 calendar days at most (the transition period), while the shop keeps running and we help with the move. If that is technically impossible, we tell you within 14 working days and propose a period of no more than 7 months. You can extend the transition period once.
• After the end. The data stays available for retrieval for at least 30 more calendar days. After that we permanently delete all of the shop's exportable data, except what the law obliges us to keep (for example, our invoices).
• No exit charges. We charge nothing for exporting, moving to another provider or deletion.
• Your own domain stays yours: you can point it elsewhere at any time in its DNS settings.

The infrastructure the platform runs on, with the countries it is in, is described in section 3 of the privacy policy.

6.10 Confidentiality

We keep information about your business (sales, customers, negotiated prices) confidential and use it only to provide the services. This continues after the contract ends, except for information that is public or that the law requires us to disclose.

6.11 Personal data

For your shop's customers' and team's data, you are the controller and we are the processor acting on your behalf, under the data processing agreement. For each person's Vindesto account and for the platform's security, Vindesto is an independent controller, under the privacy policy.

7. Reporting illegal content and moderation

We host the shops' content, so anyone can tell us about content they consider illegal (Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, Article 16). Write to contact@vindesto.ro with the subject “Illegal content report” and:

• an explanation of why you consider the content illegal;
• the exact address (URL) of the page or pages;
• your name and e-mail address (not needed when reporting content related to child sexual abuse);
• a statement that, to the best of your knowledge, the information in the report is accurate and complete.

We confirm receipt without delay. A person on our team reviews each report carefully, objectively and without undue delay; we make no automated decisions. We may remove or disable access to content, or suspend a shop or an account. We tell you our decision, and the merchant concerned receives written reasons: what we restricted, why (the legal or contractual ground), whether a report led to it and how to contest it (Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, Article 17).

You can contest any decision by writing to the same address; a different person from the one who took it reviews it. You also have the right to go to court or to the National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications (ANCOM), Romania's digital services coordinator. If we learn of an offence threatening someone's life or safety, we inform the authorities at once (Article 18).

We do not check all shop content of our own accord, and the law does not require us to (Article 8). The merchant is responsible for the content it publishes.

8. Intellectual property

The platform, its code, design, logo and the Vindesto name belong to us or to those who licensed them to us. While you use the platform, we give you the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use them as intended. You may not copy, decompile or resell the platform.

9. Changes to these terms

We may change these terms when the law or the platform changes. The date of the last update is shown at the top. For important changes we e-mail merchants at least 30 days before they apply; in that time they can end the contract at no cost. Changes required by law or by an urgent security problem may apply sooner, with the reason explained. Buyers with an account are told on the site or by e-mail; they can close their account at any time.

10. Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by Romanian law. We first try to settle any disagreement amicably, so please write to us first at contact@vindesto.ro.

• For merchants, disputes not settled amicably go to the competent courts at Vindesto's registered office.
• If you use a Vindesto account as an individual (a consumer), you keep the protection the law of your country of residence gives you and can sue in the courts where you live. You can also turn to Romania's National Authority for Consumer Protection at www.anpc.ro, including its alternative dispute resolution procedure at reclamatiisal.anpc.ro.

11. Clauses accepted expressly

The following clauses are “unusual clauses” within the meaning of Article 1203 of the Romanian Civil Code and bind merchants only if they accept them expressly, in writing, in the order form: the limitation of our liability (point 6.7), our right to suspend the services and end the contract (points 6.3 and 6.8), changing prices and terms with notice (points 6.3 and 9), and the governing law and competent court (section 10).

12. Contact

For any question about these terms, write to us at contact@vindesto.ro. The terms are available in Romanian and English, with the same content; in case of doubt, the Romanian version prevails for merchants. You can print or save them at any time with the button under the title.