Effective date: August 25, 2026
MagpieDen is an online marketplace that connects sellers of collectibles, figures, trading cards, comics, video games, and more, with buyers. Sellers are the seller of record for their items: they own, describe, and ship them, and they honor every sale. For payments and tax we act as the platform of record: card charges are processed by our payment processor (Stripe) on our platform account (marketplace facilitator), sales tax is collected and remitted by us where required, and buyer protection, verification services, and dispute resolution are provided by us under Buyer Shield.
You must provide accurate information, keep your credentials secure, and be old enough to form a binding contract (18+). You're responsible for activity on your account. We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms or our marketplace rules.
Geography. Selling is open to US-based sellers at launch (we're working on expanding seller payouts — non-US sellers can join the waitlist on the sell page). Buying is open wherever we ship: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the EU member states, per the tax policy. Cross-border buyers are the importer of record for their purchases and are responsible for complying with their country's import laws, including items restricted from import (for example wildlife and cultural-property rules).
Reselling items you legitimately own is welcome and protected by the first-sale doctrine. You represent that every item you list is authentic (unless clearly and honestly described otherwise where permitted), lawfully yours to sell, not recalled, and legal to sell. You are the seller of record: you honor the sale, ship on time, and describe condition accurately using the condition picker, box-grade standard, and required photo checklist. Our fee is a final-value fee on the item price and the shipping the buyer pays: 8% of the first $2,500 (including shipping paid), then 4% of the excess. The 8% base rate steps down with your earned seller level — 7.75% at Silver Feather (100 completed sales), 7.5% at Gold Talon (500 completed sales and a 4.8★ average across 20+ reviews), 7.2% at Magpie Elite (2,000 completed sales and a 4.9★ average across 50+ reviews); levels are evaluated when an order is created and each order keeps its own fee snapshot (founding sellers: 5% then 4%, for life — always at least as good as any level), plus payment processing. The fee shown when you create a listing governs that listing. We may change our fees going forward by posting the new schedule on this page 14 days in advance (fee reductions and temporary promotions take effect immediately). Payouts themselves are free by standard transfer (1–2 business days, $25 minimum balance); an instant payout to a debit card carries a processing fee of ~2% of the payout ($1.00 minimum), taken from the payout amount.
Identity verification comes first. Before your first listing can go live, you complete identity verification (and payout setup) through our payment processor's hosted onboarding — the same seller KYC marketplaces like eBay require. Verification details are collected and held by the processor, not by us; see the privacy policy.
Shop handles. Your seller page lives at your chosen handle (/seller/…). Changing it moves the URL only — feedback, sales history, and listings stay with the shop. Handle changes are limited to once every 30 days.
Offer auto-rules. Sellers may set instant-accept and instant-decline thresholds on offers. An offer at or above the auto-accept amount is accepted the moment it is made — the seller is committed to that price exactly as a manual accept; an offer at or below the auto-decline amount is declined instantly. Offers between the two thresholds wait for the seller's response as normal.
Buyers pay through the platform, never off-platform. As a marketplace facilitator we calculate, collect, and remit sales tax on orders where required, see the sales tax policy. Funds are held and released to the seller after delivery confirmation (buyer-confirmed or carrier-confirmed from tracking; 3-day buyer inspection window; auto-release after 7 days). All prices and charges are in US dollars; any local-currency amount shown is an approximate conversion for convenience and never alters what you are charged.
Buyer Shield. Every order carries the same core protection: escrowed payment, never-arrived refunds, and not-as-described claims for 30 days from delivery (eBay Money Back Guarantee parity) — including counterfeits — with funds held for 3 days after delivery confirmation and upheld claims after release clawed back from the seller. Shield-badge listings (AI-verified photos plus the seller's one-take video) add verified-listing evidence to every claim and cover return shipping when the seller is at fault. The full terms live in the Buyer Shield policy; claims are decided by us against the listing's own photos, video, condition, and box grade, and our fault determination is final. Buyers agree to use the claim process (not payment chargebacks) for covered issues.
Fraud and abuse. Coverage applies to honest buyers. Fraudulent or abusive claims — fabricated damage, item swaps, or repeated bad-faith disputes — void coverage for that claim and may lead to account suspension. Never-arrived coverage requires the platform's mandatory tracking; where tracking confirms delivery to the buyer's address, a never-arrived claim is resolved in the seller's favor.
Seller return policies. Sellers set a change-of-mind return policy per listing (separately for US and international buyers): window, who pays return shipping, and an optional restocking fee of at most 15%. The policy in effect is the one snapshotted on the order at checkout, based on the ship-to country. Accepted returns ship back on a prepaid platform-generated label: when the policy says the seller pays return shipping, the label's cost is charged to the seller's payout balance; when it says the buyer pays, the label's price is deducted from the buyer's refund. Once the carrier confirms the item was delivered back, the seller has 48 hours to inspect and report a problem (wrong item, damage, empty package); absent a report, the refund — total paid minus any restocking fee and buyer-paid label cost — issues to the buyer automatically. A seller report pauses the automatic refund for platform review, and a buyer who returns something other than what was shipped forfeits the refund. Sellers honor accepted return requests under their own policy terms.
Cancellations and ship-by deadlines. Buyer cancellation is two-track, and reasons are recorded: (a) instantly for unpaid orders and for paid orders within one hour of purchase — full refund (item, shipping, and tax), item relisted; (b) by request after the first hour — the seller has 3 days to approve (same full refund and relist, no strike) or decline, and an unanswered request simply expires with the order standing. Buyers whose recent history shows repeated cancellations (three or more in 90 days) return to instant cancellation. Won auctions are different: bids are binding (see §5) — a winning bidder cannot cancel, an unpaid win is cancelled at its payment deadline with an unpaid-win strike, and a paid win carries the same escrow, ship-by deadline, and claim protections as any order but no buyer walk-away. Sellers may cancel before shipping when they genuinely cannot fulfill (reason recorded), with the same full refund and relist; because it is a failure to ship on the seller's side it counts as a late-shipment strike. Every paid order carries a ship-by deadline set by the listing's handling time (the seller's stated shipping speed, default 3 days): if an order is still unshipped at the deadline it is cancelled automatically, the buyer is refunded in full, the item is relisted, and the seller is struck. Two late-ship strikes in a rolling 12 months brings a warning; a third disables selling; strikes fall off after 12 months. Sellers may pause sales entirely with time away (vacation mode), which blocks new purchases and offers on their listings until it expires; orders already paid before a pause keep their deadlines.
Shipping charges, true-ups, and carrier adjustments. Shipping is quoted live from the carrier to the buyer's address on the packed weight declared by the seller (plus, for combined shipments, an allowance for the box and packing material). When a label purchased through the platform costs less than the shipping the buyer paid, the difference is refunded to the buyer automatically. Buyers never pay more than the quoted amount. Carriers re-weigh parcels and may adjust label prices after the fact; sellers authorize such carrier adjustments on labels purchased through the platform (and any resulting debits, including negative balances recovered from future sales) to be charged to their payout balance, and may dispute adjustments they believe are erroneous through support within 30 days.
Seller-issued refunds and oversells. Sellers may refund a buyer in full or in part at any time before an order completes, without our involvement; full refunds end the order and relist the item. On multi-quantity listings each paid order takes one unit and the listing sells out at zero; if two buyers pay for the final unit in the same moment, the later payment is refunded in full automatically and the buyer is told what happened.
Seller payment authorization. By selling, sellers authorize refunds to buyers under Buyer Shield or the seller's own return policy to be funded by reversing or debiting the seller's balance — including debiting the payout bank account via our payment processor and recovering any negative balance from future sales, even after a payout — when we determine the seller is at fault. Carrier damage claims are the seller's to pursue; the buyer is refunded first. AI verification is a screening aid, not a guarantee of authenticity.
Some listings sell by timed auction. Bids are binding and cannot be retracted except where we determine a clear typographical or system error. Sellers may not bid on their own listings (blocked by the platform), and shill bidding — bidding through accounts you control or coordinating with others to inflate prices — is fraud and results in suspension and termination.
We are not an auctioneer. Our auction format is an online listing mechanism: the buyer and seller contract with each other, we are not a party to the sale, and we never take possession of the item. We do not perform the functions of a traditional auctioneer (no appraisal, custody, or knock-down), and nothing in our auction format makes us one for purposes of auctioneer-licensing or similar laws.
Proxy bidding. When you bid, you submit a private maximum and authorize us to place bids on your behalf up to that maximum, bidding only the minimum necessary and automatically counter-bidding when others bid below your maximum. Your maximum is never disclosed to other bidders or the seller. Equal maximums resolve in favor of the earlier bid.
Bid increments. Prices move in steps set by the current price level: $0.50 under $10; $1.00 at $10–$24.99; $2.50 at $25–$99.99; $5.00 at $100–$249.99; $10.00 at $250–$499.99; and $25.00 at $500 and up. The step that applies is read from the price it is added to, not the result (a current bid of exactly $10.00 takes the $1.00 step, so the next minimum is $11.00). The step sets (a) the minimum permissible bid — the current price plus one step, or the starting price when no bids exist; (b) the price when the lead changes — one step over the prior leader's maximum, never above your maximum; and (c) automatic counter-bids — one step over a challenger's maximum, capped at the leader's maximum. We may change these bands prospectively; the ladder in effect is the one published on the rules page at the time a bid is placed.
Auction end, extensions, reserves. Auctions run 1, 3, 5, or 7 days from the seller's listing going live. Any bid in the final 2 minutes extends the auction to 2 minutes after that bid, and this repeats. Buy-It-Now, where offered, ends permanently at the first accepted bid. Sellers may set an undisclosed reserve; if the top bid does not meet it the item does not sell, no one is charged, and the reserve amount is not disclosed. Once a bid is received the seller cannot lower the starting price.
Winner payment authorization. Bidding requires a default saved payment card. By placing a bid you authorize us, through our payment processor (Stripe), to charge that card automatically if you are the winning bidder, for the hammer price plus the live shipping quote to your default address and applicable sales tax. If the charge cannot be completed (decline, missing card or address, authentication required), you have 72 hours to pay or update payment from the order page. An unpaid win is cancelled, the item returns to the seller, and the cancellation is recorded as a strike: two cancelled wins suspends your ability to bid, and a third may result in suspension or termination of your account. If a charge failed for reasons outside your control and you promptly resolved it, you may appeal through support and we will review the record.
Errors and disruption. If a technical failure prevents bids from being received or processed correctly, or settles an auction erroneously, we may void affected bids, re-run, or cancel the auction, and (for settled auctions) cancel and refund the resulting order. Our determinations under this section are made in good faith and are final.
Second-chance offers. When a winning bidder does not pay within their window, we may offer the item to the next-highest bidder at exactly that bidder's own final bid, exclusively, for a limited time (72 hours). A second-chance offer is optional for the receiving bidder and never exceeds the price they themselves bid; hidden maximum amounts are never disclosed or used as the offer price. If the offer is not claimed in time, the listing returns to the seller to relist.
Counterfeits, stolen goods, recalled items, weapons, drugs, and anything illegal are banned, see the rules. We screen listings (automated and human), act on reports, and remove prohibited items. Policy violations accrue strikes leading to suspension and termination. We preserve evidence of illegal activity and cooperate with law enforcement. Rights holders may use our DMCA process.
Blocking. You can block any user from their shop page or a message thread (managed in account settings). Blocking is mutual in effect: neither of you can message the other, and offers, bids, and purchases between you are blocked. Blocking is a personal control, not moderation — report listings or users for policy violations and our team handles those.
You retain ownership of content you submit (photos, video, descriptions) and grant us a license to host and display it in connection with the marketplace. Capture-verified photos and one-take listing videos carry provenance by design and cannot be reused from other sources. Photos and video on a live listing are part of what buyers decided on: photos are immutable, video can be added while a listing is live but never replaced.
The marketplace is provided "as is." We're not liable for the condition, authenticity, or legality of user-listed items beyond our dispute and takedown processes. To the maximum extent permitted by law, our aggregate liability is limited to the fees you paid us in the preceding 12 months — except that nothing in this section limits a buyer's right to a refund under Buyer Shield or a seller's obligation to fund refunds they are responsible for under these terms.
Indemnification. You'll indemnify and hold us (and our officers, employees, and agents) harmless from third-party claims, including reasonable legal fees, that arise from your breach of these terms, your listings or content, your conduct on the marketplace, or your violation of any law or someone else's rights.
Relationship. Buyers and sellers are independent third parties. Nothing in these terms creates a partnership, joint venture, employment, or agency relationship between you and us, or between users.
Notices. We communicate with you electronically (email and in-app notifications) and by posting on this site. You agree to that channel for notices about your account, orders, and these terms; keep your email address current. Legal notices to us go to [email protected].
Changes. We may update these terms; material changes get notice in-app before taking effect.
Disputes. If something goes wrong, contact support first — nearly everything resolves faster that way. These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Minnesota, without regard to conflict-of-law rules, and the laws of the United States. Either party may bring qualifying claims in small-claims court instead of other proceedings.
Export and sanctions. You agree to comply with US export-control and sanctions laws; sales to sanctioned countries, regions, entities, or persons are prohibited (the countries we ship to and payout from are part of that control).
Assignment. You may not assign these terms without our written consent; we may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.
Severability, waiver, survival. If a provision is unenforceable, the rest stands. Not enforcing a rule once isn't a waiver. Provisions that should survive termination (payment obligations, dispute terms, license grants) do.
Events beyond our control. We're not responsible for delays or failures caused by events outside our reasonable control (natural disasters, wars, labor disputes, internet or utility failures, acts of government).
These terms (with the Buyer Shield policy, Privacy Policy, and marketplace rules) are the entire agreement between us about the marketplace.
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