Terms of Service

PaperCrane Wholesale is a marketplace connecting independent wholesale sellers with business buyers in the United States. It is operated by PAPERCRANE LLC (“PaperCrane”, “we”). Sellers list and sell their own goods; PaperCrane provides the platform: listings, payments, messaging, protection, and dispute resolution. PaperCrane is not the seller of the goods.

Notices to us under these terms go to the address above. Notices to you go to the email address on your account.

You must be 18 or older to use PaperCrane on your own. If you are between 13 and 17, you may use it only with the consent and supervision of a parent or legal guardian, who is responsible for the account and everything done with it. Payment and payout accounts must always be held by an adult: if you are under 18 and selling, a parent or guardian completes payment setup in their own name and is the legal holder of those funds.

Provide accurate information, keep your login secure, and hold one account per person or business. Buying on PaperCrane is for business purposes: resale, retail stock, and similar.

We may suspend or close accounts that break these terms, attempt fraud, misrepresent goods, or abuse other users. Suspension does not erase obligations from orders already placed.

Orders are binding at checkout. Payment is processed by Stripe and held until shipment under our Buyer Protection policy. Prices, piece counts, and lot contents are set by sellers. Payment processing appears as its own line item at checkout, and shipping estimates shown on listings are estimates, not quotes.

Offers are binding. When a seller accepts your offer, that amount becomes your price for that lot for 24 hours, and you must complete checkout in that window. If you let an accepted offer lapse, the price reverts to list price and the lapse counts as a strike against your account. After 5 strikes, your ability to make offers is disabled; you can still buy at list price.

Custom order requests require an upfront deposit, set by the seller between $10 and $50. The deposit is credited toward your purchase; it is how a request earns a seller's time. If a seller declines your request or never answers it, the deposit is returned as credit you can spend anywhere on PaperCrane.

Sellers must describe their lots accurately, keep a complete ship-from address on file (required to publish), ship promptly with tracking, and honor Buyer Protection.

PaperCrane charges a 5% fee on each sale, deducted before payout. Payouts and seller identity verification are handled by Stripe. Earnings are held until the order ships and may be clawed back if the order is refunded. When PaperCrane buys the shipping label for an order, the label charge for that order is deducted from that order's payout. The label charge includes our handling.

Only lawful goods you own and may sell are permitted: no counterfeit, stolen, or recalled items. We remove listings and sellers that violate this. Listings with order history are archived rather than deleted, because buyers' records reference them.

Sellers may save a card on file, and by doing so authorize PaperCrane to charge it when money is owed on an order and cannot be recovered from pending payouts. That means: carrier adjustments, when a shipped package's actual weight or size exceeds what was declared and the carrier bills the difference, together with our correction fee on that adjustment; refund shortfalls, when a refund owed to a buyer can't be covered by the seller's pending payouts; and chargeback recovery, when a buyer's bank reverses a payment on an order the seller was paid for. Amounts that can't be charged are withheld from the seller's next payout instead. We notify you of every such charge with the order it belongs to.

Sellers are responsible for their own taxes on sales made through PaperCrane, including income reporting. Tax forms such as the 1099-K are issued through Stripe where required. Buyers are responsible for any use tax their jurisdiction applies to business purchases. Nothing on PaperCrane is tax advice, so talk to a professional.

If something is wrong with an order, contact the seller first: buyers must raise an issue with the seller before opening a dispute. Disputes can be opened only on your own orders, and within 5 days of delivery for as-described claims. A PaperCrane reviewer considers both sides and the evidence and issues an outcome: refund, replacement, no fault, or withdrawn.

Filing a dispute does not mark a seller at fault. Only a case found against them does. Dispute decisions are made in good faith and are final within the platform, without limiting rights you have under law.

Protection follows the order. Buyer Protection, the dispute process, and payout on shipment apply to orders paid for in full at PaperCrane checkout. Paying a seller directly, splitting one purchase between checkout and a payment made elsewhere, or shipping goods to a buyer without an order on PaperCrane puts that deal outside all of it: there is no Buyer Protection, no dispute to open, and no payout guarantee, including on any portion that did go through checkout. Money that never went through the platform is not money we can review, refund, or recover.

Graded lots and defect tolerance. Lots are sold by grade, and a small share of any wholesale lot may arrive with flaws — that is the nature of bulk resale, not a fault in the sale. Item-condition claims (holes, rips, heavy stains) are covered only when the number of truly unsellable pieces exceeds the lot’s grade tolerance: Cream (Grade A), up to 5% of the lot; Standard (Grade B), up to 10%. Mixed / As-Is (Grade C) and Sealed bales disclose flaws up front and are not covered for item condition. At least one flawed piece is expected in any lot, regardless of size. When truly unsellable pieces exceed the tolerance, the refund is half the per-piece value of each piece beyond it, and you keep the goods — no return is required. Washable or easily remediable issues do not count. Getting the wrong items, a short piece count, a counterfeit, or an order that never arrives is covered at every grade.

Crane Credit is promotional store credit. You earn it on completed purchases at rates we publish, and you can redeem it only at PaperCrane checkout. It has no cash value, can't be transferred, sold, or withdrawn, and is forfeited if an account is closed for fraud or abuse. Credit earned on an order that is later refunded or charged back may be reversed. We may adjust earn rates going forward; credit already earned keeps its value.

When you refer a wholesaler, the invite code we issue is single-use and personal to them. Referral rewards apply to genuine, arm's-length transactions. Self-dealing or circular orders created to farm credit will be reversed and may close the accounts involved.

Transaction records shown on storefronts (completed deals, fulfillment times, dispute outcomes, and similar) are computed from real platform activity. They are provided as-is for buyer information. Sellers may not manipulate them, and PaperCrane may correct records affected by error or abuse.

You retain rights to photos and text you upload, and grant PaperCrane a license to display them for operating and promoting the marketplace. Don't upload content you don't have rights to.

PaperCrane has zero tolerance for objectionable content or abusive behavior. You agree not to post, send, or share content that is harassing, threatening, hateful, defamatory, obscene or sexually explicit, or that promotes violence, illegal activity, counterfeit or stolen goods, or fraud, and not to harass, abuse, impersonate, spam, or scam any other member.

Every listing, comment, story, review, and message can be reported, and any member can be blocked, from within the app. We review reports and act on objectionable content and abusive users (typically within 24 hours) by removing the content and, for serious or repeat violations, suspending or permanently terminating the account. Using PaperCrane means you accept these rules; violating them can cost you your account with no refund of any fees.

PaperCrane is a ship-only marketplace. Every order is paid for through checkout and fulfilled by shipping to the buyer. You agree not to use the platform to arrange, solicit, or conduct an in-person meeting, local pickup, or cash or hand-to-hand exchange with another member, and not to pressure any member to do so.

This is a safety rule. Meeting someone you do not know to exchange goods or money is dangerous: encounters like these have led to robbery, assault, serious injury, and loss of life, and high-value goods and cash raise the risk. An in-person or off-platform exchange also has none of the payment handling, tracking, or Buyer Protection that a shipped order does. If you arrange or attend an in-person meeting, you do so entirely at your own risk. PaperCrane does not facilitate, endorse, or supervise in-person meetings and is not responsible or liable for any harm, injury, death, loss, theft, or damage arising from them. Accounts that arrange or solicit in-person meetings may be suspended or terminated. See our safety policy.

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Michigan, USA. If any provision is found unenforceable, the rest remains in effect.

We may update these terms, and continued use after an update is acceptance. Material changes will be announced before they take effect.