Terms of Service

ShelfToWorld lets people in the United States list physical media from their shelves and lend it by mail. Movies, CDs, books, magazines, comics, manga, board games, and physical video games (carts, discs, and cases) are in scope. Digital codes, Steam / GOG / Epic keys, app-store downloads, and meetups are not. “World” is the name. Shipping in this MVP is US addresses only.

You are lending or borrowing another person’s copy. ShelfToWorld is the marketplace: we host listings, quotes, membership, checkout, and the rental thread. We are not the owner of the discs and books on a shelf, and we do not guarantee a particular title stays available.

You need an account to list, request, or accept a loan. Use a real email and a password you control. Your public profile shows display name and city/state. Your street address stays in the shipping vault until a rental is accepted, then appears on the outbound and prepaid return stubs, and is masked again after the rental is completed or cancelled.

You must be able to enter a US shipping address. You are responsible for the activity on your account. Do not share the password.

Lenders describe condition (Like New, Good, or Acceptable), completeness, format or platform, and a replacement value. We refuse water-damaged unreadable print, cracked unplayable discs, parts-only games, and digital keys.

You can add titles one by one, import a CSV you exported yourself (including a Blu-ray.com collection CSV), or upload photos of covers, spines, or a shelf. Photo import reads only the images you upload. If title detection is configured, those images may be sent to Google Gemini to guess a title. You review every draft before it is published. We do not scrape other sites and we do not ask for third-party passwords.

The membership price in the product is $15 per month for one title out at a time. That fee is access only. It does not include postage or a prepaid return. Each loan adds an estimated round-trip postage pass-through, plus insurance and a refundable hold. Movie discs and music CDs default to USPS Media Mail, which often takes 2–8 business days. USPS Ground Advantage is the faster upgrade on those titles. Video games, board games, books, magazines, comics, and manga are Ground Advantage only — Media Mail is not offered. Oversize items (board games, collector editions, big box sets) still add a surcharge, including for members. Standard video-game carts and discs usually do not. These postage amounts stay estimates until a live label is purchased. A configured EasyPost sandbox key supplies a commercial quote; otherwise the quote uses USPS Notice 123 figures. This beta does not buy labels.

In this beta, membership checkout uses Stripe test mode only. It is not a live subscription and it does not charge a real card. A member request still lists the postage estimate, insurance, and a refundable hold. The lender cannot accept until that test Checkout is completed. Leaving Checkout unfinished leaves the request unpaid.

The à la carte quote is a rental fee, the same estimated round-trip postage members pay (Media Mail by default on movie discs and music CDs, often 2–8 business days, with Ground Advantage as the faster upgrade; Ground Advantage only on every other category), insurance based on replacement value, a refundable hold, and any oversize surcharge. It costs more than membership because of the rental fee. The lender’s share of a completed à la carte loan is about 40% of the rental fee. Postage is a pass-through estimate. The platform keeps the rest of the rental fee, the oversize surcharge, and the insurance slice. In this beta those amounts are Stripe test charges only, not live commerce.

The hold is a refundable amount on the quote, meant to cover loss or a missed return. Refundable hold is 10% of replacement value. A $5.00 minimum applies for new borrowers, fewer than 3 ratings, and open disputes. Borrowers with at least 3 ratings averaging 4.0 or higher and no open dispute skip that $5.00 floor. An average under 3.0 after 3 ratings adds $10.00. Insurance is a separate slice of the replacement value. It is not a policy from an insurance company. In this beta both are collected only as Stripe test charges. If a lender declines a request, the hold is recorded as released on the ledger. A limited cancel after accept and before ship forfeits insurance and does not pay a lender bounty. After the parcel ships, the rental cannot be cancelled in the app.

If the borrower does not mark the return shipped by the due date plus a 3-day grace period, the rental can auto-buyout at the lender’s replacement value and new rentals stay blocked until that is resolved. There are no daily late fees.

A request is free to cancel until the lender accepts. Accepting unlocks street addresses and starts a 3–5 business day ship window. Pack a padded envelope and include the prepaid return label. If the lender misses that window, the rental can auto-cancel with a make-good credit to the borrower.

The borrower’s 7, 14, or 30 day clock starts when they confirm the item arrived. Tracking each person enters is visible to both once the parcel is marked shipped. Messages stay on the rental thread. The product does not collect phone numbers for the loan.

Borrowers have a 48-hour window after marking an item received to open an arrival dispute with notes and photos.

Completed member loans post a $1–$3 bounty on the lender’s earnings ledger. Completed à la carte loans post the lender share. Payouts, when turned on, use Stripe Connect Express in test mode. You onboard from Earnings. ShelfToWorld does not store your bank login. There are no live Connect payouts in this beta.

If a saved Connect account is from a previous Stripe setup, that account can’t be reused. Earnings tells you to reconnect and start a new test-mode account. Nothing is marked paid out until a test transfer succeeds.

This beta accepts Stripe test-mode keys only. A live secret key is rejected. A test-mode note means the card charge is a Stripe test, not a live charge.

After a rental is completed or bought out, each person can leave 1–5 stars and an optional note. Lender scores and borrower scores stay separate. Averages are public. “New” shows until three completes. Notes can be reported; a report hides the note. Ratings are not editable after 14 days.

Do not list items you do not have the right to lend, do not ship anything illegal or hazardous, and do not use the rental thread to harass someone. Do not try to move the loan off the mail path into a meetup. We may cancel a rental, pause a listing, or block new rentals when a buyout is unresolved or these rules are broken.

This is a beta, not live commerce. Quotes, membership, holds, insurance, and Connect payouts describe how the product is built. They do not mean a real card is charged or a real bank payout is sent. Payments stay off until a test-mode Stripe key is configured. Browsing and the seeded mail demo can still run, and those demo requests are not marked paid. We do not promise uninterrupted uptime.

Questions about these terms: support@shelftoworld.com. See also the Privacy Policy and Contact / Support.