More Than a Gift, It's Happiness in a Box.
BuildaGift
Home / House Rules
Our

House Rules

Last updated October 7, 2026

Build a Gift works because shoppers and small makers trust each other. These House Rules explain what we expect from everyone, what to do when an order goes wrong, and how we handle reports. They’re part of our Terms of Use, so by using the site you agree to them too.

On this page:

1. Be kind: no harassment

Everyone should feel safe here, whether they’re buying a single candle or running a busy shop. These rules apply in messages, reviews, listings, shop pages and conversations with our team. You may not:

  • Insult or abuse people. Name-calling, slurs and messages meant to humiliate someone aren’t allowed.
  • Threaten or pressure people. This includes threats of harm, and demands like “give me a refund or I’ll post your address.”
  • Share private details. Don’t post or pass on someone’s address, phone number, email or photos to embarrass, frighten or track them down.
  • Make unwanted sexual comments. No sexual remarks, flirting, or sexual images sent to other users.
  • Gang up on someone. Getting friends or other accounts to pile on a shop or shopper counts as harassment.
  • Keep contacting someone who asked you to stop, on this site or anywhere else. Using an order’s shipping address to contact or visit someone in person is never allowed.

If a conversation makes you uncomfortable, use Report in Messages. The conversation comes to us for review and moves out of your inbox.

2. No discrimination or hateful content

Shops must serve shoppers fairly, and nobody may be treated worse because of their race, color, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, age or immigration status. That means:

  • No refusing a sale, or making a shop policy that excludes people, because of who they are.
  • No slurs, and nothing that attacks or demeans people for these traits.
  • No items, listings or shop pages that praise hate groups or violence against a group.

Shops can still decline custom requests they aren’t able to make, as long as the reason has nothing to do with who the customer is.

3. Keep sales on Build a Gift

Paying through our checkout is what lets us help when an order doesn’t arrive or isn’t right. If a sale happens somewhere else, we can’t trace it or help get your money back. So, on the site and in messages:

  • Don’t ask shoppers to pay outside checkout, such as by Venmo, Zelle, Cash App, PayPal, cash or crypto.
  • Don’t send shoppers to another website, social media shop or marketplace to buy an item they found here.
  • Don’t ask for, or share, phone numbers, emails or social handles in order to finish a sale elsewhere.
  • Don’t offer discounts, freebies or cheaper shipping for buying off the site, and don’t use QR codes to send people away.
  • Don’t charge anything after checkout that wasn’t in the order total, like extra shipping or surprise fees.
  • Don’t misstate an item’s price or where it ships from, or use someone else’s account.

Shops can still include a business card or thank-you note in the package.

4. When something goes wrong with an order

Most problems are solved quickly between the shopper and the shop. Here’s the order to try things in:

  1. Message the shop first. Use Contact seller on the shop’s page, and include your order number. Explain what happened and include photos if the item is damaged.
  2. Give them three days. Shops are expected to reply to order messages promptly. If the shop hasn’t replied within 3 days, or you can’t agree on a fix, contact us with your order number.
  3. We’ll step in. We’ll look at the order, the listing and your messages, and may ask either side for more information. Please answer within 3 days so we can keep things moving.

What we can help with: an item that never arrived, arrived damaged or broken, or is clearly different from its listing (for example, the wrong color, size, material or quantity, or used when it was sold as new). If we agree there’s a problem, the usual fix is a replacement or a refund to your original payment method, including shipping for that item.

What we usually can’t help with:

  • an item that matches its listing but isn’t what you hoped,
  • an item that was used, worn, washed or changed after it arrived,
  • a return sent back without the shop agreeing to it first,
  • a sale that was paid for outside our checkout, or
  • a late delivery caused by events nobody could control, like severe weather, carrier strikes or natural disasters.

One dispute at a time. If you file a chargeback with your bank or card company, we’ll close our review and let that process decide the outcome. Please give us a chance to help first, because it’s usually faster.

For shops: if a shop doesn’t respond, or we find the shop is responsible, we may refund the shopper for that shop and take the amount back from the shop’s payouts. Shops may not ask a shopper to drop a complaint or change a review in exchange for a refund. Returns for change-of-mind are covered by each item’s return setting. See Returns & Refunds.

5. Items that aren’t allowed

Shops may not list:

  • anything illegal to sell in the United States, or that needs a license the shop doesn’t have;
  • weapons, drugs, drug paraphernalia, tobacco or vaping products, alcohol, or recalled or unsafe goods;
  • pornographic or sexually explicit items;
  • items that promote violence, self-harm or hate;
  • counterfeits, or items that copy someone else’s brand, artwork or designs without permission;
  • food, cosmetics or bath products that don’t meet the labeling and safety rules that apply to them.

If you’re not sure whether something is allowed, ask us before you list it.

6. Protecting children

We have zero tolerance for anything that sexualizes or puts minors at risk. This applies to listing photos, messages, review photos and shop pages, and to drawn, digital and AI-made images as well as photos.

  • No content showing minors nude, partly nude or in underwear, and no sexual text or jokes paired with images of children.
  • No adult or sexual items marketed for children or offered in children’s sizes.
  • If you photograph children modeling your items, keep it simple: fully dressed, standing naturally, with the whole child in frame. Avoid bath, bed or swimwear settings and close-up crops.

We remove this content as soon as we find it, close the account involved, and report illegal material to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and law enforcement.

7. Reporting, reviews and appeals

How to report something.

  • Use the Report link on any product page for listings that break these rules or use your intellectual property.
  • Use Report in Messages for abusive or suspicious conversations.
  • For anything else, contact us.

We read every report. Reporting someone in bad faith, for example to hurt a competitor, is itself against these rules.

How we review. A person on our team reviews reports. We also look for problems ourselves. We judge each case by these rules and the Terms of Use, and we try to apply them the same way to everyone.

What we may do. Depending on how serious the problem is and whether it has happened before, we may:

  • send a warning;
  • remove a listing, review or message;
  • pause a shop or hold its payouts while we look into it;
  • suspend or close an account, along with any other accounts we believe belong to the same person.

When we remove a listing, we email the shop the reason. We normally tell you when we act on your account, unless the law prevents it or the problem keeps repeating.

Appeals. If you think we got it wrong, email info@buildagift.com within 90 days. Tell us what was affected and why you believe it should be restored, and include any fix you’ve made. Someone who wasn’t part of the first decision will look at it, and we’ll reply with the result.

8. Coupons and promotions

From time to time we offer discount codes, like a welcome discount on your first purchase.

  • One code per order. Codes can’t be combined.
  • Codes have no cash value, can’t be exchanged for money, and can’t be resold or traded.
  • A code applies only to item prices, not shipping, unless the offer says otherwise.
  • If you return items from a discounted order, your refund is the amount you actually paid.
  • We may end or change a promotion at any time. We may cancel discounts or orders that abuse it, such as opening extra accounts to reuse a first-purchase code.

9. Trade and sanctions rules

Build a Gift is a US marketplace and ships to US addresses only. Everyone using it must follow US trade laws, including the sanctions run by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). You may not use the site if you’re on a US sanctions list, or to send items to or from a sanctioned country or region. Shops may not list goods that come from sanctioned places or were made with forced labor. We may ask a shop where an item was made, and we may cancel orders or close accounts that put us at risk of breaking these laws. Our payment processor, Stripe, also screens payments on its own and may block a transaction.

10. Changes to these rules

We’ll update these House Rules as the marketplace grows. When a change is significant, we’ll note it on the site or by email before it applies. Questions? Email info@buildagift.com or send us a message.