Terms of Service

Agreeing to these terms

These Terms of Service are an agreement between you and [Legal entity name] (“Yipi!”, “we”, “us”). By creating an account, placing an order, or otherwise using yipicircles.com or our apps (the Services), you agree to them. If you don't agree, please don't use the Services.

Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle your information and forms part of this agreement. Brands selling on Yipi! also sign a separate seller agreement.

What Yipi! is — and who you’re buying from

Yipi! is a marketplace organized around Circles: groups of people in one city who share an interest and stand behind the things they actually use. What rises in a Circle is derived from what people say in public — member votes, reader polls, ratings, local experts, and named press. Nothing in a Circle is sponsored, and no brand can pay for placement in a Circle, a feed, or a search result, at any price.

Yipi! does not sell anything. There is no Yipi! checkout, no Yipi! cart, and no Yipi! payment. When you find something here and decide to buy it, you go to the brand’s own store and buy it there. The brand is the seller: it takes your payment, issues your receipt, handles tax, ships your order, and owns returns and refunds. Yipi! never holds your money and is not a party to your purchase.

Businesses appear here in one of two ways, and the difference matters when something goes wrong. Every listing shows which one it is.

Brands we work with

A brand can subscribe to Yipi! to tell its story here and connect with Circles. Its listings link to its own store, and there is a relationship behind that link: the brand has agreed to a standard covering accurate listings, stated shipping times, responsiveness, and putting things right. If it falls short, we can take it up with them, and a brand that keeps falling short can be removed.

Businesses that were simply faved

A business can become a fave with no relationship to Yipi! at all — community signal put it there and it may never have heard of us. For those, all we do is point. There is no agreement, no standard, and no way for us to help with an order.

How Yipi! makes money

Yipi! is a subscription product. Brands pay a flat monthly fee for tools that capture and share what people are already saying about them — a brand page, Stories, discovery listings. That subscription is our revenue.

Yipi! keeps no part of what you pay for a product. We are not in the transaction at all. Where a sale earns a commission from the brand, that commission goes to the Tastemaker whose recommendation led to it.

A subscription buys tools. It does not buy rank, position, a fave, a Tastemaker’s pick, or any influence on how a Circle is ordered — and not subscribing does not keep a business off the list. Faves are derived from public signal about any business in the metro, which is why the list contains businesses that have no commercial relationship with us at all.

Your account

You must be at least [18 / age of majority] to create an account and make purchases. Give us accurate information, keep your password to yourself, and tell us promptly at hello@yipicircles.com if you think someone else has access to your account. You're responsible for activity that happens under it.

You can close your account at any time from your settings.

Prices and buying

Prices, currency, availability, and any offer shown on Yipi! come from the brand. We show them as the brand supplies them and they can change; the price that binds is the one on the brand’s own store at the moment you pay.

Product information comes from the brand. Brands we work with agree to describe products accurately and we act when they don’t, but we cannot guarantee that every detail carried from a brand’s systems is current, and the brand’s own store is authoritative.

• Yipi! takes no payment. There is no Yipi! checkout. We never see or store your payment details.
• Your contract of sale is with the brand, and the brand’s terms of sale apply to it. Read them before you buy.
• Your receipt comes from the brand.
• Sales tax is the brand’s to calculate, collect and remit, under its own registrations.
• Refunds come from the brand. Yipi! issues none, because Yipi! received none of the money.

Shipping and delivery

The brand ships your order and sets its own dispatch windows, methods, rates and destinations. Those terms are the brand’s, are shown on its store before you pay, and tracking comes from the brand.

Yipi! holds no inventory, packs nothing and ships nothing. Where a shipping detail appears on a Yipi! listing it is carried from the brand and is not a commitment from us.

Returns and refunds

Returns and refunds are the brand’s. Because you bought from the brand, on its store, its returns policy governs, its window applies, and any refund comes from the brand to the payment method you used. Yipi! issues no refunds and holds none of your money.

Where we have a relationship with the brand, start the return with them, then tell us. We’ll take it up with them and stay with it. We can advocate; we cannot refund.

Where the listing was only a link, the return is between you and that business. We have no relationship with them and cannot help.

If something goes wrong

If an order arrives damaged, never arrives, doesn’t match its description, or otherwise isn’t right, your first call is the brand — it took your payment, it holds the order, and it can put it right fastest.

Then tell us anyway, at hello@yipicircles.com. Where it’s a brand we work with, we’ll take it up with them and stay with it until it’s sorted. Every such brand agrees to a standard as a condition of being here — accurate listings, stated shipping times, responsiveness, putting things right — and one that doesn’t meet it can be suspended or removed. Being told is how we find out.

What we can’t do is refund you. Yipi! never received your payment, so there is nothing for us to return. Where the listing was only a link to a business we have no relationship with, we have no standing at all — we can remove the listing, and that is the extent of it.

Your Circles, Lists, and other content

You own what you make. Your Circles, Yipi-Lists, photos, and comments remain yours.

So that we can operate the Services, you give us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, store, display, and distribute your content within the Services, and to show public content where the Services are promoted. This license lasts as long as your content is on Yipi! and ends when you delete it, other than copies retained in backups or where someone else has already shared it.

You're responsible for what you post: that you have the right to post it, and that it doesn't infringe anyone else's rights.

Community rules

Yipi! only works if faves mean something. Please don't:

• Fave your own products, trade faves, or use multiple accounts to inflate a count.
• Accept payment to fave something or to place it in a Circle without disclosing it.
• Post content that's unlawful, hateful, harassing, deceptive, or infringing.
• Scrape, copy, or bulk-extract Circles, lists, or product data.
• Interfere with the Services, or try to access accounts or systems you're not entitled to.
• Misrepresent who you are or your relationship to a brand.

Tastemakers and Ambassadors

Anyone can fave, build a Yipi-List, and share it. You don’t need a badge, an invitation, or an approval to take part — a list you make counts the same as anyone else’s in what a Circle surfaces.

Tastemaker is a separate thing: a verified designation for someone with demonstrated expertise in a category, assessed against a published framework covering their practice, third-party recognition, and a documented body of work. It is not a rank you climb to and it is never awarded for audience size. Being a Tastemaker does not let anyone place a product, move a ranking, or override what a Circle’s members say. Ambassadors represent Yipi! more broadly.

If a Tastemaker’s recommendation leads to a sale, they may earn a share of it. Yipi! keeps none of it. The order is fixed and is not negotiable: the recommendation comes first and is made on the merits, payment follows, and the arrangement is disclosed near the recommendation itself — not in a footer, not on a separate page. Nothing may be recommended because it pays.

If you receive anything of value in connection with a recommendation — money, product, or anything else — you must disclose it clearly and close to the recommendation, as required by applicable advertising rules. The same applies to any ownership or family interest in a business you recommend.

Additional terms apply to each program, including compensation, and participation may be ended by either side.

Our intellectual property

The Yipi! name, logo, and the design, text, and software of the Services belong to us or our licensors. You may not copy or use them without permission, apart from normal use of the Services. Brand names and product images belong to their owners.

Third-party sites and services

The Services link to brands' sites and other third parties. We don't control them and aren't responsible for their content, products, or practices. Their terms and privacy policies apply when you're on their sites.

Suspension and termination

You can stop using the Services and close your account at any time. We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms, manipulates faves, or creates risk for other members or brands. Where it's reasonable to do so, we'll tell you why and give you a chance to respond.

Some sections survive the end of this agreement, including content licenses already granted, disclaimers, limitation of liability, and dispute resolution.

Disclaimers and limitation of liability

The Services are provided “as is.” We don't guarantee they'll be uninterrupted or error-free. Yipi! does not manufacture, sell, ship, or take payment for anything listed here, and is not a party to your purchase. Products carry whatever warranty the manufacturer or the selling brand provides; we add none of our own.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, our total liability arising out of the Services is limited to [the amount you paid in the preceding X months], and we're not liable for indirect or consequential losses. Some places don't allow these limits, in which case they apply to the extent permitted.

Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of [state], without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Disputes will be resolved in [courts / arbitration forum].

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as the Services change. We'll update the date at the top and, for material changes, give notice in the product or by email before they take effect. If you keep using the Services afterwards, the updated terms apply.

Contact

hello@yipicircles.com

[Legal entity name]
[Mailing address]