Terms of Service

These terms govern your use of Mtepe, a service operated by Hosea Kiptoo Kurgat, trading as Mtepe, of P.O. Box 2525-00606, Nairobi, Kenya ("Mtepe", "we", "us"). By creating or using a shop on Mtepe you agree to them.

1. What Mtepe is

Mtepe provides software that lets a seller run an online shop: a product catalogue, a checkout page, and tools to manage orders.

Mtepe is not a shop, a marketplace, a payment service provider, a bank, or a courier.

• We do not sell anything to your customers. Every sale is a contract between you (the seller) and your customer.
• We do not receive, hold, or transmit your customers' payments. Payments go directly from the customer to your own M-Pesa till, paybill or number through Safaricom's systems. We record that a payment was confirmed; we never control the funds.
• We do not deliver parcels. Delivery is performed by third parties — Pickup Mtaani, or the matatu and bus operators you send parcels with — under their own terms, or by your customer collecting from your shop. Dispatch is your responsibility.

2. Your account

You must be at least 18 years old and operating a genuine business. You are responsible for keeping your login details secret and for everything done through your account, including by your staff. Tell us immediately if you believe your account has been accessed by someone else.

Your shop address (mtepe.shop/yourname) is allocated to you for as long as your account is active. Some addresses are reserved for Mtepe's own pages and cannot be allocated.

3. What you are responsible for

You alone are responsible for:

• the products you list, their legality, authenticity, safety and description;
• your right to use every photograph, brand name and description you upload;
• your prices, stock levels, delivery charges, and the promises you make to your customers;
• packing and dispatching orders, and handling returns, faults and refunds;
• your obligations to your customers under Kenyan consumer law, and any tax you owe.

4. What you must not do

• List counterfeit goods, or goods you are not lawfully entitled to sell.
• List anything whose sale is restricted or prohibited by Kenyan law, including drugs, weapons, live animals, hazardous materials, medicines requiring a licence, and sexual content.
• Upload photographs or text belonging to someone else without permission.
• Mislead customers about price, availability, condition or delivery.
• Interfere with, overload, or attempt to gain unauthorised access to Mtepe's systems, or use the service to send unsolicited messages.

5. Takedown

If we receive a credible complaint, or we reasonably believe a listing breaks section 4, we may remove the listing and will tell you why. If the problem is serious or repeated, we may suspend your shop. Where the situation allows, we will contact you first and give you a chance to respond. See the Seller Agreement for how a complaint is handled.

6. Fees

Our fees are set out in your Seller Agreement and shown in your admin under Billing. In summary: a fixed amount for each order that is successfully paid, subject to a monthly cap. Nothing is charged for orders that expire, are cancelled, fail payment, or are refunded.

Fees are paid by you to Mtepe separately from your sales income, by M-Pesa, in advance as credit. We will give you at least 30 days' notice before changing our fees. Fees already paid are non-refundable except where we have charged you in error.

7. Availability

We work to keep Mtepe running, but we do not promise uninterrupted service. We may take the service down for maintenance, and will give notice where we reasonably can. Third parties we depend on, including Safaricom and delivery partners, may fail or change their services in ways we do not control.

8. Your data and content

You keep ownership of everything you upload. You grant us permission to store, display and reproduce it for the purpose of operating your shop.

We will not use your shop, your name or your logo as a public example, case study or advertisement without your written permission, which you may withdraw at any time.

We handle personal data as described in our Privacy Policy.

9. Ending the agreement

You may close your shop at any time by telling us. We may end this agreement on 30 days' notice, or immediately if you seriously breach these terms or the law.

When your shop closes, we will give you a copy of your product and order data on request within 30 days, and then delete or anonymise it, except where the law requires us to keep it.

10. Liability

Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law, including for fraud or personal injury caused by negligence.

Subject to that: we are not liable for lost profits, lost sales, lost goodwill, or indirect or consequential loss; we are not liable for the acts of your customers, your couriers, or Safaricom; and our total liability to you in any 12-month period is limited to the fees you paid us in that period.

You will meet any claim brought against us that arises from the products you sold, the content you uploaded, or your breach of these terms.

11. Complaints and disputes

Tell us first: [email protected] or WhatsApp +254 758 769 501. We aim to reply within two working days. If we cannot resolve the matter, it is governed by the laws of Kenya and subject to the courts of Kenya.

12. Changes

We may update these terms. If a change materially affects you we will give at least 30 days' notice by email or in your admin. Continuing to use Mtepe after that means you accept the change.

Last updated 2026-09-27