Terms of Service

§1Agreement

BookForge ("the Service") is operated by DerMar Consulting Group LLC (doing business as ForgeWorks), 3151 Cape Horn Rd, Unit #2092, Red Lion, PA 17356, USA ("we", "us", "our"). By creating a store or using the Service, you agree to these Terms of Service and to our Privacy Policy. If you accept these terms for a business, you confirm that you can bind that business, and "you" means the business. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

§2The service

BookForge is a web-based shop system for independent bookstores. It includes a point-of-sale register, inventory and receiving, special orders, trade-ins and used-book buying, purchasing, customer records and loyalty, marketing email and text messages, events, book lists, reports, a web shop, and tools to import data from other systems. It runs in a web browser; features depend on your plan. We may improve, change or retire features over time, and we will give reasonable notice before removing a feature you rely on.

§3Your account and staff

• You must be at least 18 years old and give accurate information when you sign up, and keep it up to date.
• The store owner controls who has access. You are responsible for everything done under your store's accounts, including staff sign-ins, usernames and register PINs.
• Keep passwords and PINs private, and tell us at info@my-bookforge.com straight away if you think someone has used your store's account without permission.
• Each plan includes a set number of staff and register sign-ins, shown on our pricing page.
• One email address can open one store through self-serve sign-up. Contact us if you run more than one shop.

§4Free trial

New stores get a free trial, currently 7 days, with no card required. When the trial ends, you choose a paid plan to keep ringing sales and adding stock. If you don't, you can still sign in and export your data, but ringing sales and adding stock pause until you subscribe. We may change or end trial offers for new sign-ups at any time.

§5Plans and billing

• Plans and prices are listed on our pricing page. Prices are in US dollars.
• Subscriptions are billed monthly in advance through Stripe and renew automatically until cancelled.
• Upgrades take effect immediately, with a prorated charge for the rest of the billing month. Downgrades take effect at the end of the current billing month.
• You can change your plan, update your card or cancel at any time from the Billing page in BookForge.
• Fees are non-refundable except where the law requires otherwise. Cancelling stops future charges.
• If a payment fails, we may pause paid features until it is paid.
• We will give you at least 30 days' notice of any price increase to your plan.

By giving payment details, you authorise us, through Stripe, to charge your payment method for all fees you owe.

§6Payments from your customers

If you take card or online payments, they run through your store's own Stripe, Square or PayPal account, which you connect to BookForge. BookForge does not charge a fee on your sales. You are the seller in every sale and are responsible for:

• the payment provider's terms and fees, refunds, disputes and chargebacks
• the sales tax rates you set in BookForge, and collecting and paying the right taxes
• your prices, receipts, returns policy and the goods you sell

We are not a party to the sale between you and your customer.

§7Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• break any law, or use the Service to sell goods you are not allowed to sell
• send spam, or send marketing messages to people who have not agreed to receive them
• upload malicious code, or content that infringes someone else's rights
• try to access another store's data or any part of the Service you are not authorised to use
• overload, disrupt, probe or scrape the Service, or get around its limits or security
• resell the Service, or use it to build a competing product

§8Your data

Your store's data belongs to you: your catalog, stock, sales, customers and everything else you enter or import. You give us permission to store, process, copy and display it only as needed to run the Service for you, to keep it secure and to support you. We do not sell your data.

You can export your store's data at any time from inside BookForge. You are responsible for the accuracy and lawfulness of the data you put in, and you should keep your own copy of anything you can't afford to lose.

§9Your customers and your messages

For your customers' personal information, you are the controller and we process it for you, as described in our Privacy Policy. You are responsible for:

• having a lawful reason to record your customers' information, and telling them how you use it
• getting and recording consent before marking a customer as agreeing to marketing emails or texts
• honouring unsubscribe and STOP requests
• following the laws on marketing messages and privacy that apply to you, such as CAN-SPAM, the TCPA, CASL and the GDPR

§10Book data and connected services

Book details, cover images and suggested prices come from outside sources such as ISBNdb, Google Books and Open Library, and may be incomplete or wrong. Check them before you rely on them. Imports from other systems depend on the files you provide; check imported records after an import.

When you connect another service, such as Stripe, Square, PayPal or WooCommerce, that service's own terms apply to your use of it, and we are not responsible for it.

§11Hardware and offline mode

BookForge works with standard barcode scanners, receipt printers and label printers, but we don't guarantee that every device works. The register can keep ringing sales during an internet outage and uploads them when the connection returns. Offline sales are held only in that device's browser until then, so clearing the browser's data or losing the device before it reconnects can lose them.

§12Intellectual property

The Service, including its software, design and content, belongs to us and is protected by intellectual property law. We give you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use it for your store while your account is in good standing. You may not copy, modify, reverse engineer or create derivative works of the Service. If you send us suggestions, we may use them without obligation to you.

§13Cancellation and termination

You can cancel at any time from the Billing page. We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms, does not pay, or puts the Service or other stores at risk. Where we reasonably can, we will warn you first and give you the chance to fix the problem.

After an account closes, you have 30 days to ask for your data to be exported, after which we may delete it permanently, as described in our Privacy Policy.

§14Disclaimers

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE", WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE OR SECURE.

Reports, reorder suggestions, tax calculations and book data are tools to help you run your shop. You remain responsible for checking them and for your own business decisions.

§15Limitation of liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, WE WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA OR GOODWILL, OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE SERVICE. OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ANY CLAIM ARISING FROM THESE TERMS OR THE SERVICE WILL NOT EXCEED THE FEES YOU PAID US IN THE THREE MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM.

§16Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. We will tell account owners about material changes by email or with a notice in BookForge at least 14 days before they take effect. If you keep using the Service after that, you accept the updated terms.

§17Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, USA, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. Any dispute will be decided in the state or federal courts located in Pennsylvania.

§18Contact

Questions about these terms? Email info@my-bookforge.com, or write to DerMar Consulting Group LLC (dba ForgeWorks), 3151 Cape Horn Rd, Unit #2092, Red Lion, PA 17356, USA.