V-Bazaar’s Intellectual Property Policy
As a platform for independent vegan-friendly, cruelty-free and globally conscious wares, V-Bazaar places great priority in maintaining and protecting users’ intellectual property rights. The company remains in compliance with intellectual property laws and best practices as regarded by the industry so as to maintain the integrity of this vegan-friendly and cruelty-free marketplace. The Intellectual Property Policy hereinafter detailed explains how V-Bazaar addresses allegations of any intellectual property infringement, how authorised parties can submit proper notices of infringement regarding content on the platform, and how V-Bazaar vendors can respond when their product listings or shops are affected by a notice.
V-Bazaar has adopted the following intellectual property policy in accordance with best practices as seen by the industry, as well as general and applicable UK intellectual property laws, and the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Users are advised that this policy comprises part of V-Bazaar’s overall Terms of Use.
Notices of Intellectual Property Infringement
It is V-Bazaar’s intention to process and respond to any proper notices and actual knowledge of intellectual property infringement in an expeditious manner. In accordance with applicable UK laws, responses to such notices will be the timely removal or disablement of access to the offending content or material. When such a removal or disablement is made, the company will make a reasonable attempt to notify the allegedly infringing party that the offending content or material has been removed.
Repeat Offences
V-Bazaar
terminates the account privileges of users that are repeatedly issued notices
of intellectual property infringement. Users are advised that account
termination is only conducted in appropriate circumstances and at the discretion
of V-Bazaar.
V-Bazaar’s Advertising and Marketing Policy
As a vegan-friendly, cruelty-free and globally conscious marketplace and community, V-Bazaar takes interest in the growth of businesses with these attitudes. Therefore, the company strives to help vendors grow and develop their businesses and reputations, and by extension contribute to the overall mission of a cruelty-free world. With this in mind, V-Bazaar offers vendors a wide variety of advertising channels to promote their products and services. The Advertising and Marketing Policy hereinafter details all vendor rights and responsibilities when using the advertising services available on V-Bazaar.
Users are advised that the following policy forms part of V-Bazaar’s overall Terms of Use. In using any of V-Bazaar’s advertising services, the user agrees to adhere to this policy and the aforesaid Terms of Use.
1. Paid Advertising
Advert fees are charged on a cost-per-click (or “CPC”) basis. The vendor is responsible for paying for any clicks their adverts receive. As such, the vendor will only be charged when their advert is clicked, not just by its being displayed on V-Bazaar’s website. The user may pause an advertising campaign anytime, but they are advised that they will remain responsible for any charges incurred prior to the campaign being paused. Users are further advised that V-Bazaar is unable to grant refunds for any charges incurred in relation to clicked ads.
The user’s advertising fees will appear in their payment account daily, alongside other charges, e.g. product listing fees. For more information about this, the user is advised to refer to V-Bazaar’s Fees & Payments Policy.
Currently there are two types of paid advertising available for purchase by vendors by way of V-Bazaar’s Advertising Dashboard. These options are Promoted Listings and Google Shopping Ads.
Promoted Listings
With this advertising option, vendors’ products are given prominent display on the V-Bazaar website. Promoted Listings also appear prominently in users’ search results (dependent on search relevancy, listing quality, and the amount bid to display the listing). Vendors can choose to promote some or all their products and services with the Promoted Listings option.
V-Bazaar’s Promoted Listings use a sealed bid generalised second-price auction system in order to decide the cost and placement of adverts. That is to say, V-Bazaar “auctions off” advert inventory at differing prices, subject to demand. To give an example, if more products labelled for Promoted Listing qualify for a particular search query, the bid price may increase accordingly.
In order to buy Promoted Listings, a “bid” must be entered by the vendor. This is the maximum amount of money the vendor is willing to pay if a customer clicks on their Promoted Listing product. The actual costs incurred differ, depending on the number of participants in the auction and the amounts they bid. By entering a bid, the user agrees to pay any amount up to and including the bid amount for a click on their ad. All bids must be made in Pounds Sterling (GBP).
For each Promoted Listing, the user can manage their bidding manually. Alternatively, the user can allow V-Bazaar’s bid management system to optimise their bid selection automatically. This is known as Auto-bidding. The user is able to amend their selection at any time. Auto-bidding is designed to decide the bid price most suitable in yielding as many clicks as possible for a product labelled for Promoted Listing within a given budget. In using Auto-bidding, the vendor submits understanding and acknowledgement their bids may change at any time. The vendor is, however, able to designate a maximum CPC amount or maximum bid – in other words, a figure that the Auto-bidding system will cap off at and not surpass.
Furthermore, users may also opt for using the Auto-Promotion feature available on V-Bazaar. This allows vendors to automatically promote new products and services as soon as they are listed in their shop on V-Bazaar. In using the Auto-Promotion feature, the user submits understanding and acknowledgement that auto-bidding for each new product or service listed on their V-Bazaar shop.
You can set a budget to limit the amount you’re willing to pay V-Bazaar to promote your listings. Your daily budget can be as low as $1, and you will never be charged more than your daily budget.
Google Shopping Ads
With this advertising option, vendors’ products are listed directly in Google search results and by way of the Google Shopping service (dependent on search relevancy, listing quality, and the amount bid to display the listing). Vendors can choose to promote some or all their products with the Google Shopping ads.
In purchasing Google Shopping Ads, the user agrees to adhere to Google’s policies, including but not limited to the Google Shopping policies and Google Advertising Programme Terms. Any user found to be committing activity that violates any of these policies may have their Google Shopping campaign suspended or terminated.
With the Advertising Dashboard on V-Bazaar’s platform, users can purchase Google Shopping Ads directly. Google’s advertising system uses an auction to determine cost and placement of adverts. Therefore, users are advised that the cost of adverts may differ depending on factors such as availability, demand and time of day.
To buy Google Shopping Ads, the user has to enter an average daily budget. This budget must be at least £1 and set in GBO. Vendors are advised that the basis by which Google manages campaigns and optimises results is monthly as opposed to daily. As such, vendors are further advised that Google may exceed their average daily budget by up to 100% on any given day. However, if the vendor maintains the same average daily budget for one month, that vendor will not be charged more than the average daily budget multiplied by the average number of days in a month (i.e. 30.4).
During a vendor’s campaign, all product and service listings will be promoted by default. This includes any new product or services created by the vendor thereafter. Vendors are able to remove any products and services listed from a campaign at any time by way of the account’s Advertising Dashboard. If any edits or amendments are made to the product or service listings within the duration of the advertising campaign, adverts will update to reflect those amendments automatically.
Users are advised that, in purchasing Google Shopping Ads, they are also opting out of V-Bazaar’s free Google Shopping Engine Ads. However, should the vendor pause or end their Google Shopping Ads campaign, their re-enrolment to the free Shopping Engine Ads will be automatically executed.
2. Advertising on Shopping Engine
V-Bazaar allows vendors to promote their listings on third-party shopping engines – the company refers to this type of advert as Shopping Engine Ads. If a vendor decides to enable this type of advertising on their account, the vendor is granting permission to V-Bazaar to promote their listed products and services on third-party sites. This is in order to advertise products to potential customers who may not be using V-Bazaar. Users may opt out of Shopping Engine Ads campaigns at any time. This can be done by disabling the feature in the vendor’s Shop settings options.
Users are advised that shopping engines that associate with V-Bazaar are subject to change at any time. Currently, V-Bazaar affiliates with and syndicates product and service listings to several channels, including Google Shopping, Bing, and Facebook.
Vendors may currently participate in Shopping Engine Ads for free, which means that while the aforementioned shopping engines do charge a fee for these listings, these fees are currently charged to V-Bazaar, rather than the vendor. However, the user acknowledges that V-Bazaar reserves the right to amend the terms of Shopping Engine Ads participation at any time. The company will notify users of any changes in a timely manner.
Users are advised that Shopping Engine Ads are subject to the terms and policies observed and upheld by each respective shopping engine participating in the programme. These terms and policies may be different from V-Bazaar’s. The user acknowledges that they are responsible for being in active compliance with the terms and policies of those third party sites. If a user is found in violation of these third-party terms and policies, this will result in the removal of their Shopping Engine Ad campaign, and potential ban from participation in the Shopping Engine Ad programme.
3. Shop-Specific Promotions
Sales and Coupons
On V-Bazaar’s platform, vendors are able to offer promotions specifically for their own shops. There is currently a choice of two promotional tools available for vendors: Sales and Coupons.
Sales are promotions wherein a vendor can offer customers perks like percentage-based discounts or free shipping. Vendors can run a sale on a single or multiple products or services. Vendors are advised that sales are publicly visible; all customers will be able to see them and partake in the sale. V-Bazaar may, as the occasion arises, aggregate Sales and give them further promotion on the website and in email marketing campaigns.
Coupons are codes that customers can acquire and redeem for product discounts or free shipping. Unlike Sales, Coupons are not publicly available. Vendors may create and distribute their shop-specific Coupons at their own discretion. However, vendors are advised that a Coupon code can be used by any customer who redeems that code. Furthermore, a customer can use a Coupon code on multiple product listings and on multiple occasions.
Vendors acknowledge that they are solely responsible for adhering to V-Bazaar’s policies and all applicable laws in relation to Sales and Coupons. In regard to Sales promotions, the responsibility falls to the vendor to set the terms and conditions for that promotion in the section entitled ‘Sale Details’. In regard to Coupons, the responsibility falls to the vendor to ensure customers are aware of any terms or limitations in relation to the promotion when the Coupon code is shared. All users are advised that neither Sales nor Coupons may be used for fee avoidance.
Targeted Offers
V-Bazaar also has a free marketing tool called Targeted Offers. This allows vendors to offer a Coupon to specific customer or audience demographics who have interacted with the vendor’s V-Bazaar shop. Interactions include “favouriting” one of the vendor’s products or adding a product or service to their basket. As with all Coupons dealt with on V-Bazaar, a Coupon sent by way of the Targeted Offer tool can be used by any customer that redeems the code. Such Coupons can also be used on multiple products and on multiple occasions. Targeted Offers is a free tool for vendors, but vendors are advised that, if they opt in to sending Coupons by way of the V-Bazaar Targeted Offer tool, they will not be able to limit the number of times the Coupon is sent. If the vendor wishes to discontinue Targeted Offers, they can manage their campaigns from their Sales and Coupons dashboard. Furthermore, vendors can choose to automatically send a free Coupon to customers as a thank you for buying something from their shop. Vendors are advised that V-Bazaar may amend this service or discontinue it at any time, but not without due prior notice.
Customers are advised that Coupons will only be sent to those who have opted in to receive email-based Coupons from V-Bazaar vendors.
4. Disclaimers
Vendors are advised that in using advertising and promotional services by way of V-Bazaar’s platform does not mean V-Bazaar is obliged to display an advert or promote a vendor’s listings. The user acknowledges that V-Bazaar cannot guarantee a displayed advert or promotion will be clicked, nor can the company guarantee that, even if a user clicks an advert, that the related product or service will be sold.
Users agree that adverts and promotions must not include content that is in violation of or an infringement of any third-party rights. This includes but is not limited to copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity, or other personal or proprietary rights. For more information, users are advised to refer to V-Bazaar’s Intellectual Property Policy. The user acknowledges that they are responsible for making sure their adverts and promotions are in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations.
V-Bazaar reserves the right to reject or remove any advert or promotion for any reason, in the company’s sole discretion. This also includes marketing that V-Bazaar believes will negatively affect its relationships with users or affiliated third parties.