Terms of Service
Last updated: August 6, 2026
1. Agreement and Who These Terms Cover
These Terms of Service are an agreement between you and Qatar Shop, the operator of a multi-tenant commerce platform for boutiques in Qatar (the "Platform"). They apply to (a) "Merchants" — boutique owners who subscribe to the Platform to run their store, and (b) "Customers" — people who browse, message, call, or buy from a Merchant's store. By creating a store, placing an order, or messaging a boutique through the Platform, you accept these Terms and our Privacy Policy.
These Terms are provided in English and Arabic. For Customers, the Arabic text prevails where the two diverge. For Merchants — a business-to-business relationship — the English text, as the drafting language, prevails to the extent Qatari law permits.
2. Eligibility and Accounts
Merchants must be authorised to conduct commercial activity in Qatar (an MOCI-licensed Commercial Registration is required for full operation) and warrant that the information they provide is accurate. Customers must be 18 or older, or use the Platform with a parent's or guardian's consent. Each Merchant must display its trade name and Commercial Registration number on its storefront so Customers know who they are buying from. You are responsible for safeguarding your sign-in credentials and for all activity under your account; tell us immediately if you suspect unauthorised access.
3. The Platform's Role
Qatar Shop provides commerce infrastructure: storefronts, product and inventory management, order processing, payment integration, WhatsApp/Instagram messaging, an AI order-extraction engine, a voice ordering assistant, delivery-zone management, and label printing. Each Merchant operates its own independent store. Qatar Shop is not the seller and is not a party to any sale between a Merchant and a Customer; it does not hold Customer funds as principal.
4. Merchant Subscriptions, Plans, and Billing
The Platform is offered on subscription plans (currently Starter, Growth, and Pro) with the prices, features, and limits published on our pricing page. Every plan starts with a free 30-day trial with no card required; paid billing begins only after the trial when payment collection is activated. Plan limits (for example, the number of products a plan may hold) are enforced by the Platform; exceeding a limit requires an upgrade. We may change plan prices or features with at least 30 days' notice; changes take effect at your next billing cycle.
Fees are stated in Qatari Riyals and are exclusive of any applicable taxes. Payment-gateway transaction fees are separate from the subscription. Non-payment after the trial may result in suspension until the balance is settled. Subscription fees already paid are non-refundable, except that if Qatar Shop terminates a Merchant's subscription other than for breach or non-payment, fees prepaid for the unused period are refunded pro rata.
5. Pausing, Cancellation, and Data Export
Merchants can pause their store (customers see a notice; the dashboard stays available) or cancel their subscription at any time from the dashboard. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing cycle unless the Merchant requests immediate closure. Cancellation is terminal: the storefront closes, and the Merchant's data remains available read-only for 30 days for export, after which it is scheduled for deletion (subject to the legal retention in the Privacy Policy). Qatar Shop may not be able to restore data after this window.
6. Orders, Pricing, and Payments
Every order is a contract between the Customer and the Merchant. The Merchant is responsible for product descriptions, pricing, availability, delivery times and fees, and product quality and safety. Payments are processed by SkipCash (cards) or settled as Cash on Delivery; the amount shown at checkout — including any discount and delivery fee — is the amount charged. Card details are entered on the payment provider's secure pages and never touch Qatar Shop's servers.
7. Returns and Refunds
Return and exchange policies are set by each Merchant and must comply with Qatari consumer-protection law. Each Merchant must publish on its storefront a clear return and exchange policy and customer-service contact details, keep them accurate, and honour them. Refunds approved by a Merchant are issued through the Platform to the original payment method where possible (card refunds via SkipCash; COD refunds as arranged with the Merchant). The Platform records refunds against the order, including partial refunds. Disputes about a product or order should be raised with the Merchant first; if unresolved, contact us and we will facilitate in good faith — without becoming a party to the sale.
8. Messaging, Calls, and AI Assistance
When a Customer messages a boutique on WhatsApp or Instagram or calls its ordering line, the Platform processes the conversation — including with artificial-intelligence systems — to understand the order, draft replies, and prepare carts and payment links. AI can make mistakes: extracted orders and voice reservations are drafts until the Merchant or Customer confirms them, and the confirmed order details shown at checkout or in the order confirmation are what govern. By messaging or calling, the Customer consents to this processing as described in the Privacy Policy. By providing a phone number at checkout, the Customer agrees to receive order updates (confirmation, dispatch, delivery) at that number on WhatsApp or SMS. Marketing messages (cart reminders, review requests) are sent only with the Customer's prior consent and can be stopped at any time (Privacy Policy Section 6).
9. Merchant Data Obligations
Merchants control their customers' personal data and must handle it lawfully under Qatar's Personal Data Privacy Protection Law: use it only to serve those customers, keep it confidential, honour customer privacy requests, and never export it for unrelated marketing, resale, or any unlawful purpose. Qatar Shop processes customer data on the Merchant's behalf strictly as described in the Privacy Policy, applies per-boutique isolation, and will assist Merchants with customer privacy requests. Each party is responsible for its own compliance.
10. Acceptable Use
You may not use the Platform to:
- Sell goods that are prohibited or illegal under Qatari law, or misrepresent products.
- Send spam, harassment, or phishing, or contact customers outside the purposes they agreed to.
- Probe, overload, or circumvent the Platform's security, rate limits, or the isolation between boutiques.
- Impersonate another person or business, or infringe intellectual-property rights.
- Scrape or harvest data from the Platform, or use it to build a competing dataset.
We may suspend or terminate access, remove content, and notify authorities for violations.
11. Content and Intellectual Property
Merchants retain ownership of their store content, product catalogue, images, and brand, and grant Qatar Shop a licence to host, display, and process that content solely to operate the service. Customers retain ownership of their reviews and photos and grant the Merchant and Qatar Shop a licence to display them on the store. Qatar Shop retains all rights in the Platform software and infrastructure. Feedback you send us may be used to improve the service without obligation.
Custom domains: a Merchant attaching a custom domain warrants that it owns or controls that domain.
12. Availability and Support
We aim for high availability but the Platform is provided without an uptime guarantee; maintenance, upgrades, and third-party outages (payment, messaging, hosting providers) can cause interruptions. Support is provided per the subscribed plan's support tier. We are not responsible for failures of third-party services outside our control, though we will work to restore service promptly.
13. Disclaimers and Limitation of Liability
The Platform is provided "as is" and "as available". To the maximum extent permitted by Qatari law, Qatar Shop disclaims implied warranties and is not liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages, loss of profits, or loss of data arising from use of the Platform, from a Merchant's acts or omissions, from AI output errors prior to order confirmation, or from service interruptions. To the same maximum extent, Qatar Shop's total aggregate liability is limited, for a Merchant, to the subscription fees that Merchant paid in the twelve months before the claim, and, for a Customer, to the value of the affected order. These exclusions and caps do not apply to liability arising from Qatar Shop's own fraud or gross negligence, nor to any other liability that may not be limited or excluded under Qatari law.
14. Indemnity
Merchants will indemnify Qatar Shop against claims arising from their products, store content, customer communications, or breach of these Terms or of applicable law — including consumer-protection and data-protection claims relating to the Merchant's conduct.
15. Suspension and Termination
We may suspend or terminate access for material breach of these Terms, unlawful activity, non-payment, or risk to the Platform or its users — with notice where practicable. Merchants may terminate at any time per Section 5. Sections that by nature survive termination (intellectual property, liability limits, indemnity, governing law) survive it.
16. Force Majeure
Neither party is liable for delay or failure caused by events beyond its reasonable control — including natural disasters, war, government action, utility or telecommunications failures, and outages of third-party providers.
17. Governing Law and Disputes
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Qatar, and disputes fall under the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Qatar. Before litigation, the parties will attempt in good faith to resolve any dispute amicably within 30 days of written notice.
18. General
If any provision is held unenforceable, the rest remain in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms without our consent; we may assign them in a merger, acquisition, or reorganisation. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and any signed Merchant agreement, are the entire agreement between us regarding the Platform; a signed Merchant agreement prevails over these Terms where they conflict.
Notices: formal notices to a Merchant are sent to the account's registered email address and are deemed received one business day after sending; formal notices to Qatar Shop go to the contact address in Section 20. General announcements may additionally be posted on the Platform.
19. Changes to These Terms
We may update these Terms from time to time. Material changes will be announced on the Platform and take effect 14 days after posting (or 30 days for pricing changes, per Section 4). Continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance.
20. Contact
For questions about these Terms, contact us at the address below.