Acceptable use and restricted products.

01About this policy

This policy is issued by [Company legal name], a company registered in [Jurisdiction] under number [Registration no.] ("Zonipay", "we", "us"). It forms part of the merchant agreement and the Terms of Service. If this policy and the merchant agreement conflict, the merchant agreement governs.

Zonipay is the merchant of record for orders placed through a merchant's store. Because every sale is made in our name, we answer to card networks, to our payment processor and to regulators for what is sold and how. This policy sets the limits that responsibility requires.

It applies to the merchant, to anyone acting for the merchant, and to every storefront, checkout, product listing, marketing channel and communication connected to an account with us.

02Permitted businesses

We work with registered businesses that supply research-use-only materials to laboratories, institutions, businesses and qualified individual researchers. To be accepted, a business must:

• be a legally registered entity in good standing, with the same legal name shown on its storefront, receipts and policy pages;
• identify its beneficial owners and controllers and pass our business verification (see the Compliance Policy);
• operate the store under its own name and sell its own products, from its own catalog;
• hold any licence, registration or permit that its products or activities require where it operates and where it ships;
• operate a storefront that meets the requirements described on our compliance page before its first sale and at all times after.

Unregistered businesses and businesses we cannot verify are not accepted.

03Permitted products

Merchants may sell products intended solely for laboratory research and analysis, including:

• lyophilized research peptides supplied as reference materials, in sealed vials or other reference forms;
• analytical standards and reference materials;
• laboratory reagents;
• laboratory consumables and equipment used with the above.

Each research product must be supplied with a certificate of analysis for the batch sold, labeled for research use only, and described in factual, technical terms. Only lyophilized vials and comparable reference forms are accepted. Capsules, tablets, sprays, pre-mixed solutions, ready-to-inject formats, kits assembled for administration and any other consumer-ready format are not permitted.

We may decline a product or category, including one that is lawful, if we consider that it creates a risk we cannot accept as merchant of record.

04Prohibited products

The following may not be sold, offered, advertised or linked to from a store connected to Zonipay, whether or not the item would be paid for through our checkout.

4.1 Research-sector restrictions

• any product marketed, labeled or packaged for human or animal consumption, injection, application or dosing;
• prescription medicines, and any product presented as a substitute for one;
• products whose names, packaging or descriptions borrow the brand name of an approved medicine;
• controlled substances, scheduled substances and their analogues;
• anabolic steroids;
• selective androgen receptor modulators (SARMs);
• growth hormone, and products presented as releasing or replacing it;
• kratom and kratom-derived alkaloid products;
• nicotine and tobacco products;
• any product sold with a health, weight-loss, anti-aging or performance claim;
• supplements and other ingestible consumer products.

4.2 General payment-industry restrictions

• goods or services that are illegal where they are sold or where the buyer is located;
• counterfeit, replica or unauthorized goods;
• products that infringe a patent, trademark, copyright or other intellectual property right;
• weapons, ammunition, explosives and their components;
• drug paraphernalia;
• stolen goods and goods obtained unlawfully;
• any product or service that card network rules or our payment processor's terms do not allow.

05Prohibited practices

Merchants must not:

• Process for others. Accept payments through their account for another business, website or seller, or route orders from another storefront through their checkout. This includes transaction laundering, aggregation and any arrangement that hides the true seller.
• Misrepresent the business. Give us false or incomplete information about their identity, owners, products, volumes, storefronts or history, or change any of these without telling us first.
• Use undisclosed storefronts. Run a website, domain or sales channel through their account that we have not reviewed and approved.
• Sell to minors. Sell to anyone under 21, or remove, weaken or bypass the age gate.
• Deal with sanctioned parties. Sell to, ship to or source from persons, entities or regions subject to sanctions administered by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) or other applicable authorities.
• Market deceptively. Use false scarcity, fake reviews, invented endorsements, misleading prices or hidden terms.
• Facilitate resale for human use. Knowingly sell to a buyer who intends to resell or supply products for human or animal use.
• Bypass the attestation. Pre-tick, hide or work around the research-use attestation at checkout, or accept an order where the buyer has stated a use other than laboratory research.
• Split or disguise transactions. Split one sale into several charges, misdescribe what was sold on an order, or use product names on the checkout that differ from the storefront.
• Hide the store from review. Show our scanner a different version of a page than buyers see, or block our review of the storefront.
• Suggest workarounds. Tell buyers, in any channel, how to use products outside research use or how to avoid these rules.

06Marketing rules

These rules apply everywhere the merchant presents its products: product and category pages, images and labels, file names, URLs and slugs, page titles, SEO titles and meta descriptions, structured data, product feeds, packaging inserts, social media accounts and posts, influencer and affiliate content, ads, email and text message campaigns, and customer support replies.

6.1 No claims

No statement, image or implication that a product has any effect on a person or animal. This covers dosing and administration, health and treatment, weight and body composition, appearance and ageing, sleep, mood, cognition, recovery and athletic performance. Testimonials, before-and-after images, research summaries framed as benefits, and links to third-party pages that make such claims all count as claims.

6.2 No human-use language

No dosage charts, protocols, cycle guides, stacking advice, reconstitution instructions written for administration, syringe or injection imagery, or calculators that convert a product into a dose. Words that suggest consumption must not appear in product names, descriptions, images, URLs or metadata.

6.3 Required statements

Each product page and the site footer must state clearly that the products are for laboratory research use only and are not for human or animal use. The statement must be easy to see and must not be contradicted elsewhere on the page.

6.4 Access to the catalog

The catalog, prices and cart must be visible only to signed-in customers, and public product feeds must be closed. Marketing that sends the public to product pages must respect this.

6.5 Affiliates and third parties

The merchant is responsible for content published by its affiliates, agents and contractors as if it were its own.

07Buyer rules

Buyers purchasing through a Zonipay checkout must:

• be at least 21 years old;
• confirm, by selecting an unticked checkbox themselves, that the purchase is for laboratory research use only and not for human or animal use;
• not be a sanctioned person or located in a restricted jurisdiction;
• not buy for resale for human or animal use.

The attestation is stored with the order. Full buyer terms are in the Buyer Terms. Merchants must cancel any order where they have reason to believe these rules are not met, and tell us.

08Monitoring

We review every store before its first sale and scan it every 8 hours after. We may also review orders, product listings, marketing channels and public information about the merchant at any time. Findings are sent to the merchant with the page concerned and the change needed. The process, severity levels and deadlines are described in the Compliance Policy.

09Enforcement

Our response is proportionate to the issue. Depending on severity, history and risk, we may:

1. send a finding and ask for a change within a stated time;
2. remove or block a product from the checkout;
3. pause payments on the store until a critical finding is fixed;
4. hold or delay payouts, or apply or increase a reserve, as permitted by the merchant agreement;
5. suspend or terminate the account;
6. report the matter to our payment processor, card networks or authorities where we are required to, or where we believe it is appropriate.

A critical finding that is not fixed within 48 hours may lead to payments being paused until it is fixed. Serious breaches, including sale of prohibited products, processing for third parties, sanctions breaches or misrepresentation, may lead to immediate suspension without prior warning.

Where we act, we tell the merchant what we found and what they can do about it, unless the law prevents us. A merchant who disagrees with a decision can ask us to review it under our complaints procedure.

Fees, fines or assessments that a card network or our processor charges us because of a merchant's breach may be passed on as set out in the merchant agreement.

10Changes and questions

We may update this policy as card network rules, our processor's requirements or the law change. We will give merchants reasonable notice of material changes by email, except where a change is required immediately by law or by a payment partner.

If you are not sure whether a product or a piece of content is allowed, ask us before you publish it.

Questions about this policy: compliance@zonipay.com, Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 18:00 ET.