Terms of service

Using the app and the website

• The app is free for residents. Asking, answering, clipping an offer and saving a business cost nothing and never will.
• One account, one person. An account is a first name and a mobile number you can receive a code on. Keep it to yourself; what is done from it is done by you.
• You must be 13 or older to have an account.
• We can close an account that posts things that are not true, harasses anyone, games the recommendations, or breaks these terms. We tell you why.
• You can close your account at any time from Mine in the app. What is deleted is set out in the privacy policy.

What you post

• A recommendation is your own experience, of a business you have actually used, in your own words. Not a favor to a friend, not a business recommending itself, not a paid line.
• It belongs to you. When you post a recommendation, you give Shop Local Delmarva permission to show it in the app, on the website and in print, with your first name and town. You can ask for it to be taken down at any time.
• It stays when a member leaves. Your recommendation is about the business, not about its membership. If the business cancels, your words stay on its listing.
• A member may reply to a recommendation that names them, in a short note shown under it. A reply cannot remove or edit what you wrote.
• Nothing is ranked. There are no stars, no scores and no counts on a business. Lists are ordered by distance and rotation. Nobody can pay to change that, and nobody can vote to.

Listings

• A listing is created only when a neighbor names a business. We do not import directories, scrape the web or make listings up.
• A business that has not joined shows its name, its category, its town and what neighbors said. No phone, address, hours, photo or offer, because nobody has confirmed them.
• Removal is honored on request. If it is your business and you do not want a listing, tell us through the contact page and name it. We take it down.
• No listing carries a warning label. A business is either a member or it is not, and the green Member tag is the only difference shown.

Membership

• Who can join. A business a neighbor has already named, that people on the Delmarva Peninsula can call or walk into. We take a look before we say yes, and we may say no.
• Category caps, first come. Five members to a category in each town. When a category in a town is full, the next applicant waits for a spot to open.
• Open-ended, month to month. A membership has no fixed term. It continues until you cancel it or we end it.
• Cancelling. Give 30 days’ notice, from the member portal or by contacting us. You pay through the notice period and your listing stays live until it ends. Then the listing goes back to what everyone else has: the name and what neighbors said. Contact details, photos and offers come off.
• Price. The price is the arithmetic on the membership page: a base rate that includes your home area, a set amount for each additional area, and a flat rate for every area on the peninsula. If a price changes, we tell you before it applies to you.
• Founding rates are held for as long as you stay a member without a break. Two founding spots per category, peninsula-wide. Re-enrolling after a cancellation is at the current price.
• Prominence is a bolder name, in place, for one member per category in each area. It never changes position. It is held while it is paid for, and it comes free when the member who holds it cancels it or cancels their membership.
• No exclusivity. Membership does not make you the only business of your kind in a town, and nothing we sell does.
• Billing. Monthly, by card, processed by Stripe. Shop Local Delmarva never sees or stores a card number. If a payment fails we tell you and try again, and if it keeps failing a person calls you. A membership that stays unpaid ends, and the listing reverts as above.
• Your listing is yours to keep true. Hours, phone, address and photos are yours to enter and update, and a neighbor who acts on them is trusting you.
• The magazine. Every member is in every issue of the printed quarterly. It is a member perk, not something we sell, and a listing prints as it stands on the 10th.
• Reports. A member sees how many times their listing was shown, called or given directions, and how their offers did, by town. Never who.

Offers

• We read your first three offers before they go out. We may ask you to change one that is unclear, misleading or not something you can honor.
• Honor it at the counter, every time. An offer a neighbor clipped is a promise. If you cannot keep it, take it down before someone clips it, not after.
• One per person unless the offer says otherwise. A neighbor shows the offer on their phone; you mark it used; it counts as a walk-in in your report.
• You are responsible for your offer: its terms, its legality and what you deliver. Shop Local Delmarva is not a party to the sale.

Neighbor of the Month

• Each month, Shop Local staff pick neighbors to receive $10 to spend at any member business, starting from whose recommendations other neighbors used. There is no vote and nothing to enter.
• An award appears in the neighbor’s app the day they are picked. It is good for 60 days, can be used once, and cannot be exchanged for cash.
• A member who honors an award is credited $10 on their next payment. A code redeems once; a second redemption of the same code is refused.
• We can exclude a neighbor from being picked where the recommendations behind it were not genuine, and we can void an award that was obtained that way.

The giveaway

The monthly giveaway has its own rules, on the giveaway page. No purchase is necessary, and agreeing to texts is not a condition of entry.

Texts

• What we text. The monthly giveaway: when it opens, the last day to enter, and when the winner is drawn. Nothing else is sent on this program. A sign-in code is sent only when you ask for one, and only to the number that asked.
• Ways to join. The text-alerts page and the giveaway entry form.
• How often. Up to 6 messages a month. Message and data rates may apply.
• Stopping. Reply STOP to any message and we stop. Reply HELP for help.
• Consent is not a condition of any purchase, of membership, or of entering the giveaway.
• Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.

What we are not responsible for

• A recommendation is a neighbor’s opinion, given in good faith about their own experience. We do not check a business’s work, licenses or insurance, and we do not guarantee any business. Hire the way you would hire on any neighbor’s word.
• An offer is the member’s. Any dispute about an offer, a sale or a service is between you and the business.
• The service is provided as it is. We work to keep it running and accurate, and we do not promise it will be available or error-free at every moment.
• Our liability for anything arising from the app, the website or a membership is limited to the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim, and to the extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss.
• Your responsibility. You agree not to hold Shop Local Delmarva responsible for what you post or for what you sell.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Maryland, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. A dispute that cannot be settled by talking is brought in the state or federal courts serving Wicomico County, Maryland, and you agree to their jurisdiction.

If any part of these terms cannot be enforced, the rest still applies. If these terms change, the date below changes with them, and a change that matters to you is announced in the app or by email before it applies.

Contact

Shop Local Delmarva

• Phone or text: 443-669-6501
• Email: justin@shoplocaldelmarva.com
• Mail: 26454 Pemberton Dr, Salisbury, MD 21801
• The contact page.