Joom follows the rules of fair competition and cares about customers' experience. Therefore, we are hard on merchants that violate the rules of our platform and employ unfair methods to gain profits.

 

Penalties for Platform Rule Violation

Different platform rule violations call for different penalties. The platform can penalize merchants by the methods at the discretion of the platform without prior notice.

When deciding on the penalty to be applied to merchants, Joom considers the following:

1. number of prior violations;
2. severity of the violation.

 

Platform Rule Violations Degrees of Severity

Note: Repeated violations of any severity can lead to penalties for violations of great significance.

Platform penalty methods include account blocking, strike, product blocking, order refund and money penalty.

I. Account blocking

If your account gets blocked, you will see the red warning message on top of every page in your Joom account. The message includes the date your account was blocked and the date your account operations will get blocked as well.

II. Receiving a strike

If your store receives a strike, you will see the red warning message on top of the store page in your Joom account. The message includes the period the strike is valid for. For more information on strikes and violations that may lead to strike application, please refer to the article Strikes for Platform Rules Violations.

III. Product blocking

The product violating platform rules or any applicable legislation will get rejected and will no longer be sold on Joom.

IV. Order refund

Joom can penalize merchants by issuing order refunds. For refunded orders, merchants receive the RCM invoices. To learn more, please refer to the article Refund Policy.

V. Money penalty

In some cases, Joom may withhold merchant’s funds due to the merchant's breach of the Terms of Service.

 

Types of Violations

Product Related Violations

1. Selling Prohibited Products

Joom bans merchants from selling alcohol, drugs, tobacco, weaponry, etc. on the platform. Merchants are not allowed to use content that is violent, pornographic, or offensive in any way. This is in addition to legal restriction that may apply to certain types or categories of products that are prohibited or restricted for sale in countries of origin, transit, or destination of the product.

To learn more details, please refer to the article Products Prohibited on Joom.

 

Joom maintains a zero-tolerance attitude towards selling counterfeits on the platform. 

To learn more details, please refer to the article Intellectual Property Protection on Joom.

 

Theft of images refers to unauthorized use of images or photos belonging to a third party and thus prohibited.

 

Duplicated products cannot be uploaded, even to different stores under a single account. Products should differ significantly from one another in image, name, description, price, etc.

 

Merchants must not falsify the links to products. Example: the product link initially leads to a towel (for a lower price). Then the merchant changes the product body of the link to a dress (sold for a higher price).

Upon confirmation of the falsity of a product link and replacement of the product, the offending product will be removed.

 

Joom strongly prohibits placing together products from different categories. Each URL must refer to one type of product only. So, if a product is a suit, you would not be able to split it up into its top and bottom, then sell them separately as different variations.  

 

Price Related Violations

The unreasonably high price refers to a product priced over 20% (this percentage may differ) higher than the market price with no valid reason. We urge merchants to check their listings and reduce the unreasonably high prices.

We also check the prices set by the merchant for the offline shipping. If we find the pricing unreasonably high, Joom will give appropriate penalty.

 

If prices across variants of multi-attribute products differ by over 10% for no valid reason, the product will be withdrawn or rejected during moderation.

For any price difference in product variations, a reasonable explanation must exist, such as different functionalities (e.g., electronic devices) and different sizes (e.g., blankets may vary in size).

For products belonging to Clothing and Footwear categories, price mismatch among different sizes is prohibited.

 

Logistics Related Violations

Merchants must not create and use their own labels for orders shipped via Joom Logistics (JL), as the chances of returns and refunds increase. 

For more information, please refer to the article: Joom Logistics Shipping Labels Requirements.

 

Merchants must provide the exact shipping weight for a product. 

If the shipping weight given by the merchant differs from the factual weight of the package by more than 10% or 5 g, it is considered incorrect. In such a case, according to the Terms of Service, Joom reserves the right to withhold any losses and amounts of compensation from the amount payable to you. As well as, to apply other penalties, such as strike.

 

False logistics information:

1. A merchant provides the same tracking number for orders from different customers;
2. A merchant provides an incorrect tracking number to a customer (e.g. the customer is in Europe, but the tracking number given refers to a product being shipped to South Africa);
3. A merchant ships empty packages.

Joom has the right to cancel the orders without consulting the merchant.

 

Please pay attention to the integrity of products and accessories when shipping.

Unrelated items must not be included in the package:

• Cards with other online or offline store information and any personal information;
• Store discount coupons, cash back coupons, or VIP cards, etc.

Please note: Joom does allow merchants to include “Thank you” cards with the merchant's Joom store name or link; greeting cards, bookmarks, or stickers with good wishes such as “Have a nice day!"; reasonable, small gifts or souvenirs, such as refrigerator stickers, keychains, etc.

 

Other Violations

A merchant is not allowed to have multiple accounts under the same legal entity on Joom.

If a merchant creates multiple accounts under different legal entities, such accounts are considered to be related accounts. Merchants can only create related accounts with Joom approval.

Related accounts with duplicate product assortment are duplicate accounts. Duplicate accounts are prohibited on Joom since they are considered as an unfair competition behavior.

Note: Joom reserves the right to block all the related accounts once we find a connection between accounts that the merchant has not prior reported.

 

How to get Joom approval for related accounts?

1. You can request the approval by contacting our Merchant Support team and providing the following information:
   • The reason for creating the related accounts;
   • New account login email and merchant name on Joom;
   • Specify how the accounts are related.
2. Do not use related accounts to duplicate the product assortment. Duplicate accounts—accounts with duplicate product assortment, lead to unfair competition and affect user experience. If such violations are detected, all the related accounts will be blocked.
3. Do not use related accounts to violate other platform policies and rules. If violations are detected, all the related accounts will be blocked.

What accounts can be considered related?

• Accounts owned by affiliated companies. Affiliated companies are the companies that influence each other's activities or conduct business activities together. They include, but not limited to:
  • subsidiary or parent companies;
  • companies belonging to one group of companies;
  • branches of the same company.
• Accounts managed by one person or a team.
• Accounts owned by companies with a common director.
• Accounts owned by relatives.
• Accounts owned by companies with common investors.

Brushing refers to merchants ordering their own products and leaving fake positive comments to improve their ratings and number of orders.

 

In order to ensure efficient communication, service quality, and user experience, Joom has special customer service representatives qualified in the relevant local language, who are responsible for the communications between merchants and customers. 

It is prohibited for a merchant to contact customers privately via phone, email address, or social media (such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Viber, VK, etc.) except for the cases when it is required according to the applicable legislation (for example, to recall unsafe products).

 

4. Poor Performance

Joom platform evaluates how well your store performs every day. If during the evaluation period we conclude that the store’s performance is consistently unsustainable, the store will face risks of being blocked. 

For more details on store's getting blocked due to poor performance, please refer to the article Store Performance System.

 

Joom reserves the right to block accounts that we find inactive or underperforming.

The criteria are as follows:

1. The account has not passed KYC review;
2. Unsatisfactory merchant service quality: the account has more than 5% order refunds or cancelations and multiple products with low review rating;
3. Low sales:

• Account has no sales or less than $100 of GMV on the platform within the first 30 days since KYC passed review;
• Account has no sales or less than $100 of GMV on the platform within the last 90 days.