Rent a shelf shop

Charityworker

Could anyone have a quick look at my FIRST DRAFT of terms and conditions. I will get a legal person to have a look but would be nice to get some opinions first. Especially about copyright - I don't know if I worded it right.
This is the first draft of terms and conditions. May be subject to slight change

Shelf Holder Requirements:

All items must be hand made by either you or a close relative (no wholesale, mass produced or secondhand items),
You must have a PayPal account,
You must have public liability insurance,
You must be willing to communicate through Facebook
You must be reliable

All items must adhere to copyright laws. If your items have a character or company/football team logo etc on them you will need to hold the required copyright to that image.

Payment to (name)

Payment will be £8 per week. You will get a 4 tier shelf unit measuring 61cms by 30cms by 130cms.

Your first payment for your shelf space should be paid when you sign your agreement. Thereafter your £8 per week payment will be taken from the total of the items you sell every Friday morning. Any profit after taking your weekly fee will be sent to you by PayPal using the friends and family option wherever possible. In the event that you haven't sold £8 worth of items in a week I will contact you about payment for the shortfall. You will need to pay this by either PayPal, bank transfer or in cash in person in the shop by 4 days after requesting it. If this payment hasn't been made by 4 days after requesting it your items will be removed from your shelf and stored until you either pay or come to get them. You will be able to collect a receipt for your shelf rental when you visit the shop to replenish your items. You will receive a message every Friday morning informing you which items have sold so that you can come in and replenish your shelf.

(Name) will be open 6 days per week from 10am to 3pm. Occasionally the shop may have to close due to illness or if the proprietor is out taking part in an activity which promotes the business. However, we will always endeavour to find cover for those days.

It's worth keeping in mind that there are peeks and troughs when it comes to selling in a gift shop. The peeks are generally Mother's Day, Father's Day, Easter, the summer season, Halloween (if you have the right items) and of course Christmas. High weeks make up for the low weeks so it's worth looking at your shelf renting as a term instead of week by week. We will be running extra promotion tailored to the peeks and troughs and also extra advertising to coincide with events happening on the seafront.

(name) will except no responsibility for theft or breakages. Your public liability insurance should cover this. However we will endeavour to make sure this never happens.

If you wish to stop selling your items in the (name) you must give 4 weeks notice.

If your shelf gets empty before the week is over you will be contacted.

All food items must have expiry date and list of ingredients.

All items must have a clear price tag.

Returns:
Refunds will only be given for items which are either faulty or not fit for purpose. All refunds must be asked for within 30 days of purchase and be accompanied by a receipt.

Solarjunkie

How do you define "reliable"?
Peek is a quick look, peak is the top of a mountain, so "peaks & troughs".

What about opening at least one evening a week, employed people don't tend to be available to browse shelves between 10 and 3. If you are anywhere near a school and want mums to pop in after they have collected the children, again that will be after 3.

Will you do the courses in the evening? What if an attendee wants to buy something from a shelf?

Good luck with your venture.

paddyrg

(name) will except no responsibility

ACCEPT not EXCEPT

Public liability insurance will not cover breakages.
You need to be clear somehow that you are an agency and selling on behalf of the seller, and they'll be responsible for legal compliance for their goods and post-sale customer services.
Why have a 4-week notice period but weekly payment for shelves? Why not link the two together? Also helps the rush the week before the big holidays leaving you with bare shelves the rest of the year
You should not rely on price tags put on the the sellers, you need your own tags for tracking - ID numbers of some kind
I take it you're taking no commission? Who is paying the card fees then? Cash handling fees?
Are the shelf fees alone enough to run a shop - 5 hours a day x 6 days a week x minimum wage PLUS rent, rates, power, NI, holiday pay, payroll costs, accountancy fees, bank charges, your own insurance, etc?
What if a seller only wants a couple of shelves, not a whole unit? Won't the shelves look bare?
Paypal friends and whatever may not be appropriate, and indeed why not let people take cash to reduce your cash handling fees at the bank?
Maybe food should specify a copy of the food handling certificate/whatever the local council regs are must be displayed in cabinets

Charityworker

Plus rates to hire the room (which I've already had a lot of interest in) will be enough.

Charityworker

I don't know what happened to most of my last post.

The reason I put reliable is that as you know at the moment I run wedding and craft fayres. Getting the money out of them for their exhibition space is nothing short of a nightmare. I've heard every excuse in the book. So that's why I decided to deduct their rental money from their takings. But would it be better to do it 4 weekly?

The question about is £8 a week from each shelfer going to be enough. Well thats the going rate I'm afraid. Even shops like this in London only charge £10 per week. But it will be enough as my shop rent is £35 a week ALL IN. My other outgoings will be employing my daughter for 5 hours a week, bank charges which are £2 a week on my account and insurance which I've had a quote at £7 a month. I make a lot of money from fayres so that will cover it if I have a low week.

Im also going to charge £10 a day for workshop/table space.

Ive already got people to rent the 17 shelving units I've got and am starting a waiting list.

Owain_Moneysaver

Charityworker wrote: »

Returns:
Refunds will only be given for items which are either faulty or not fit for purpose. All refunds must be asked for within 30 days of purchase and be accompanied by a receipt.

Those terms are illegal and unenforceable in a consumer contract.

If you put them in the contract with your crafters you will find yourself in a position where you have to refund to the customer, but are unable to reclaim this refund from the crafter, and you will be out of pocket.

You require the crafter to indemnify you against all refunds, claims, or chargebacks by customers. An indemnity clause requires drafting by a knowledgeable person.

You should also reserve the right to return work which, in your opinion, is not of a sufficiently high standard to be displayed.

Mattygroves2

I'd separate the rent from their takings and bill them for 4 weeks rent in advance. Get them to set up standing orders. It will make it easier their end for accounting purposes as well - no need to gross up their takings to account for the rent paid.

The word reliable is hard to define so it is pointless having it in there. Either define exactly what you mean or take it out - you can't use it to enforce anything.

Who insures the goods in your shop for fire, theft etc ? That needs to be clear - public liability won't cover that.

I'd also question whether the venture is profitable. You should be factoring in at least minimum wage for everyone who is minding the shop which would include yourself if you are the person doing it. Also holiday cover or will you be willing to sit there for 5 hours a day 52 weeks of the year ?

You haven't covered how you'll manage card payments or are you only going to take cash ?

You also need to factor in depreciation of the shelf units and the cash register or whatever you're using to take the cash - ie the unit needs to make enough profit to pay for them being replaced at regular intervals.

How about the need for a phone line for broadband access and you've got a really good deal if £35 includes rates and all utilities - check carefully for fair usage clauses and what happens if the business rates environment changes.

Finally have you checked that sending business payments via paypal in the way you suggest is within their terms and conditions. If not then stating it in your written contract is a risk. Do it properly via bank transfer to the crafters.

Charityworker

Well today my t@cs have gone into the solicitors to be reworded etc.

In response to the person asking if it is going to be profitable don't forget that this is just a small branch of an existing business running events. My calculations say that I'll be roughly £800 a month in profit with all branches of my business considered.

PasturesNew

My first thought was to double check whether the planning permission were correct/in place for the type of shop you wish to run. Near where I live there was a huge hoo-hah when a curtains warehouse closed down (probably 60' square, off the main road/behind buildings) and opened up as a craft space/emporium of booths, shelves and tables.


You don't seem to be open many hours. While it could be argued "it's more hours of display time than the crafters would be getting if they weren't here" you're going to miss all the "looking for things to distract me and buy" type of footfall that you get outside of these hours. People going to/from work and needing to pick something up, or to help them wind down a bit by browsing and buying something nice.

With short opening hours it looks more like a "hobby/just playing around" thing, rather than a serious business venture that expects to get huge popularity and growth.

DigForVictory

Just a quick thought - noone's mentioned the swings & roundabouts of hiring your 18 year old daughter as staff.

Frankly, I wouldn't. Volunteer with perks, maybe, but ticketed employee for whom I have to do All the Employer stuff for one morning a week?!

If you have to set up a workplace pension scheme, get everything PAT tested, have a first aider, permit unions etc etc etc *anyway*, then that's less bad, but employing family strikes me as dynamite. (It may just be me...)