Terms and Conditions

Terms and Conditions of Use of www.thehivenz.co.nz

Acceptance The Use Of www.thehivenz.co.nz Terms and Conditions

Your access to and use of www.thehivenz.co.nz is subject exclusively to these Terms and Conditions. You will not use the Website for any purpose that is unlawful or prohibited by these Terms and Conditions. 

By using the Website you are fully accepting the terms, conditions and disclaimers contained in this notice. If you do not accept these Terms and Conditions you must immediately stop using the Website.

1. Terms & Conditions of use for buyers and vendors.

The Hive NZ is a marketplace where you can find products and services offered by small businesses from New Zealand. We bring you a safe and easy online shopping experience with kiwi businesses only. 

We support small businesses and help them grow to their best potential. Our small business collective is a positive and strong community.

All products sold on this website are sold by persons, businesses or entities IN TRADE.

When you buy a product or a service on our website, this is an agreement solely between you and the vendor(s) you are buying from. The Hive NZ functions as a marketplace and therefore has no role or responsibility in the agreement or contract. 

We do really take pride in the quality of our vendors and their products/services and we do keep a close eye on our processes. We expect buyers as well as vendors to keep communication about any issues within our system, please use the messages system available to you. 

Without any communication visible to us within our system, we cannot try and mediate if we would see the need to.

Our system provides buyers and vendors the opportunity to use our message system to communicate, this is an open system and it is monitored by The Hive’s admin. 

You agree not to use our message system to bypass The Hive’s order and payment system to arrange sales outside of The Hive’s website, not to share any external links like website URL’s, social media links or email addresses within our message system to avoid success fees or for ANY other reason.

Ignoring these message rules will most likely get your account suspended or removed instantly.

Seeing as you are free to use our messaging system to communicate directly with each other (vendors and customers) we need to stress; we expect respect, kindness and positive communication. 

You agree to not use our message system to send rude, illegal and/or offending content.

The Hive holds the right to put on hold or delete any accounts which breach our kindness expectations without any obligation to explain or refund.

The Website is provided on an AS IS and AS AVAILABLE basis without any representation or endorsement made and without warranty of any kind whether express or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of satisfactory quality, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, compatibility, security and accuracy.

To the extent permitted by law, www.thehivenz.co.nz will not be liable for any indirect or consequential loss or damage whatever (including without limitation loss of business, opportunity, data, profits) arising out of or in connection with the use of the Website.

www.thehivenz.co.nz makes no warranty that the functionality of the Website will be uninterrupted or error free, that defects will be corrected or that the Website or the server that makes it available are free of viruses or anything else which may be harmful or destructive.

Nothing in these Terms and Conditions shall be construed so as to exclude or limit the liability of www.thehivenz.co.nz for death or personal injury as a result of the negligence of www.thehivenz.co.nz or that of its employees or agents.

The Hive NZ – being a marketplace – cannot be held liable for – not limited to – any of the below reasons:

A. A product fault

B. Product description error or disagreement

C. Product safety

D. Vendor not sending product or order getting lost.

All vendors on The Hive must comply with the New Zealand Consumer Guarantees Act and the Fair Trading Act

www.thehivenz.co.nz will never ask for or hold Credit Card details and we request that you do not enter it on any of the forms on www.thehivenz.co.nz. 

Any purchases made on our website are charged through the payment portal Stripe. 

With Strip no registration is necessary, a credit or debit card and your e-mail address are all that is required for a payment.

We take your privacy very seriously here at The Hive NZ, your personal details such as name and address will never be sold or provided to any third party unless you have given us specific permission to do so. Our system uses an encrypted and secure back up to keep your details safe at all times.

We do use website analysis technology like Google Analytics, it helps us improve functionality of our website.

You can at any time access and edit your account on The Hive NZ. If you want your details to be completely removed from our website, please contact ADMIN

Please read our complete Privacy Policy here

As our website is a marketplace, you are buying directly from small businesses who sell their products/services on our website. Therefore your payment will go directly to the seller.

The Hive does not hold any payments to sellers – they have full control over their order process.

If you are finding yourself in the position of wanting to put in a complaint or wanting a partial/full refund from a seller, you need to contact the seller directly. From within your customer account – or directly on their store page. Making sure there is a record of your communication WITHIN our system is vital, should it come to mediation.

We expect our sellers to uphold and follow the Consumers Guarantees Act at all times.

If you have tried resolving an issue with a seller and you still feel they are in breach of any rules or regulations, please contact The Hive’s Admin. We are not responsible or liable but are always willing to mediate.

The contents of www.thehivenz.co.nz website do not constitute legal advice and should not be relied upon in making or refraining from making, any decision.

www.thehivenz.co.nz reserves the right to:

1.K.1  change or remove (temporarily or permanently) the Website or any part of it without notice and you confirm that www.thehivenz.co.nz shall not be liable to you for any such change or removal.

1.K.2  change these Terms and Conditions at any time, and your continued use of the Website following any changes shall be deemed to be your acceptance of such change.

www.thehivenz.co.nz website may include links to third party websites that are controlled and maintained by others.

Any link to other websites is not an endorsement of such websites and you acknowledge and agree that we are not responsible for the content or availability of any such sites.

1.M.1  All copyright, trade marks and all other intellectual property rights in the Website and its content (including without limitation the Website design, text, graphics and all software and source codes connected with the Website) are owned by or licensed to www.thehivenz.co.nz or otherwise used by www.thehivenz.co.nz as permitted by law. 


1.M.2
 The exception being any content created and provided by the businesses that are present and sell their products or services on our website. This content would be present within their product listings and on their store page or ‘about’ information, the seller in question is solely responsible for this content and if you find any breach in copyright, trade marks or intellectual property within that content, you need to contact the seller and creator of the content.


1.M.3
 In accessing the Website you agree that you will access the content solely for your personal, non-commercial use. None of the content may be downloaded, copied, reproduced, transmitted, stored, sold or distributed without prior written consent from the copyright holder. This excludes the downloading, copying and/or printing of pages of the Website for personal, non-commercial home use only.

You agree to indemnify and hold www.thehivenz.co.nz and its employees and agents harmless from and against all liabilities, legal fees, damages, losses, costs and other expenses in relation to any claims or actions brought against www.thehivenz.co.nz arising out of any breach by you of these Terms and Conditions or other liabilities arising out of your use of this Website.

If any of these Terms and Conditions should be determined to be invalid, illegal or unenforceable for any reason by any court of competent jurisdiction then such Term or Condition shall be severed and the remaining Terms and Conditions shall survive and remain in full force and effect and continue to be binding and enforceable.

These Terms and Conditions shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the law of New Zealand and you hereby submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the New Zealand courts.

For any further information please email webmaster

2. Terms and Conditions of use for vendors

The Hive NZ provides businesses from New Zealand a marketplace to sell products or services.

We vow to support and motivate small business owners where we can with a focus on community and information sharing.

We allow any type of small business to join us on our website as long as they are located in and selling from New Zealand.

The majority of our vendors (approx 95%) sell handmade goods but this is not a requirement to join our website, we believe ANY type of small business is one we want to support!

Obviously any products or services our vendors put on our website should be legal to sell/provide within New Zealand

We expect our vendors to abide by and be aware of any laws applicable to their business as well as their products. This includes that – by selling on The Hive – you acknowledge that you are IN TRADE as required by law.

Our vendors are expected to provide excellent customer service and if they are not sure what that means, there will be plenty of information available to them.

Communication is key in any business relationship and that’s also the case on The Hive.

The Hive NZ is a collective which thrives on vendor’s input, activity and positive energy.

The cohesive look and reliable content on The Hive’s website is invaluable to us therefore we have minimum requirements to your product listings.

You can find the most up to date and detailed requirements in our product listing guide

By agreeing to these Terms & Conditions you agree to the requirements as listed in that guide.

To be able to sell and receive payments for your orders, you will need to have a Stripe account for your business. This is FREE and really easy to do over at www.stripe.com.

If you do not connect your store to a Stripe account and you receive an order, the full order payment (minus Stripe fees) will go to The Hive NZ Admin. Your payment will get sent to your recorded bank account by The Hive’s admin MINUS a $5 admin fee.

You are required to keep all communication with (potential) customers within The Hive’s system, when a customer/buyer contacts you through The Hive’s messages system, please do not refer to or send them to any external links. This includes website URL’s, Social media accounts or email addresses.

You are to keep all sales inquiries within our system, our message system is monitored by The Hive Admin and a breach of these terms can result in immediate suspension or deletion of your account.

Although The Hive NZ is not responsible or part of your sale agreement with your customer, we care about the overall reputation of our website’s processes and how potential issues are dealt with.

Your behaviour will reflect on all of our vendors as well as The Hive’s own reputation. Therefore, we expect and will enforce you to uphold excellent service and communication.

A more detailed explanation of the order process, including our expectations from you as a vendor, can be found in our Orders, Payments and Disputes Guide

By agreeing to these Terms & Conditions you agree to the requirements as listed in that guide.

When you choose a Royal Bee contract on The Hive NZ, you will enjoy many awesome features and one of them is that you will not pay ANY success fees over your sales.

There will be Stripe’s fee over your sales, these are automatically deducted when an order is placed..

When you choose a Bumble Bee contract on The Hive NZ it means you pay nothing for your contract but when you have a sale on The Hive, you will pay a success fee of 15%

There will also be Stripe’s fee over your sales, these are automatically deducted and all fees are calculated over the total $ amount of your order (excl postage cost)

The Hive NZ does not currently charge any fees for listing a product, a listing stays valid until you remove it and there is currently no fees on adding categories or images.

A more detailed explanation of the order process, including any fees that apply, you can read in our Orders, Payments and Disputes Guide

By agreeing to these Terms & Conditions you agree to the requirements as listed in that guide.

How you get paid depends on whether you have connected your Stripe or not

A more detailed explanation of the order process, including payments to you for orders, you can read in our Orders, Payments and Disputes Guide

By agreeing to these Terms & Conditions you agree to the requirements as listed in that guide.

If a customer is not happy and wants a refund,replacement or other resolve, The Hive expects you to uphold excellent customer service, great communication as well as following the Consumers Guarantee Act and any other laws that apply.

The customer can contact you directly through our message system and you need to reply to them directly within the system too – no attempt to mediate will be made by The Hive NZ if communication has happened outside of our system.

If complete or partial refunds need to be given, you will be able to do that from within your account.

A more detailed explanation of the order process, including how to handle disputes you can read in our Orders, Payments and Disputes Guide

By agreeing to these Terms & Conditions you agree to the requirements as listed in that guide.

The below applies to both our Bumble Bee as well as Royal Bee contracts.

When you register on The Hive as a vendor, your payment and subscription will be set up through your dashboard. When your contract is due to end you will receive an email warning you of this.

If you want to continue, change contract type/length, want to down/upgrade OR you want to delete your seller account, please do so from your vendor dashboard

If you have any issues in regards to the above, please contact ADMIN

NO REFUNDS are given on contract fees – our terms and conditions clearly state all our processes.

We want our customers to browse around our website and find active seller profiles, with active products. Nothing as annoying as looking around and not finding any products in store pages or finding products you cannot buy.

This is why the below limits are set:

You can put your store page on Holiday Mode from your settings – however, no longer than 21 days and no more than 2 times a year. If you feel ADMIN should give you an exception, please contact us.

Your store page is required to have active products in it within any given 2 week period.

Products showing as ‘sold out’ are not visible to the customer on the live site, please take this into account when you want to keep your store page active. You can edit the listing or delete it from your dashboard.