Terms of Service

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) govern your use of the Zippiq platform — the Zippiq mobile applications, the website at www.zippiq.in, and related services (collectively, the “Platform”). The Platform is operated by New Dawn IT Solutions, 1st Floor, KC Centre, Karunagappally, Kerala, India (“Zippiq”, “we”, “us”, “our”). By accessing or using the Platform you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, please do not use the Platform.

1. About the service

Zippiq is a hyperlocal marketplace that connects customers with local shops, restaurants, service providers, delivery partners, and transport partners. We facilitate listings, order broadcasts, quote selection, payments, and delivery coordination. We are not the seller of any product, the provider of any service, or the operator of any vehicle. Each vendor and partner is an independent third party.

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old and capable of entering into a legally binding contract under applicable Indian law to use the Platform. By using Zippiq you represent that you meet these requirements and that the information you provide is accurate and complete.

3. Electronic communications consent

By using the Platform, you consent to receive communications from Zippiq electronically — including SMS, email, push notifications, WhatsApp messages, automated calls, OTP verification messages, transactional alerts and order updates, and (where permitted by law) marketing communications. You agree that electronic communications satisfy any legal requirement that such communications be in writing. You may opt out of non-essential marketing communications using the in-app preferences or by writing to support@zippiq.in; transactional and service messages necessary to operate the Platform cannot be opted out of while you have an active account.

4. Customer terms

• Orders are subject to vendor and delivery-partner availability.
• Prices are set by individual vendors. Zippiq selects the best available quote based on a composite of availability, price, and distance, but does not guarantee the lowest possible price.
• Once a vendor confirms your order, cancellation may not be possible if preparation has begun. See the cancellation & refund section below.
• You are responsible for providing an accurate delivery address, contact number, and any access instructions, and for being available to receive the order.
• You agree to use the Platform for personal, lawful purposes only and not to resell, scrape, or misuse any content or service.

5. Vendor terms

Summary only — the full vendor agreement (commission, payouts, KYC, tax, restricted goods, suspension, indemnity, governing law) lives at /vendor-terms and is the document a vendor accepts at onboarding.

• Vendors are independent businesses solely responsible for their listings, pricing, stock, product quality, packaging, food safety (where applicable), and compliance with all applicable laws including the FSSAI Act, GST law, and the Legal Metrology Act.
• Vendors must hold and maintain all licences, registrations, and certifications required for the goods or services they offer, and must upload valid copies on request.
• Vendors must respond to order broadcasts within the stated time window, honour confirmed quotes, and not discriminate between Platform and walk-in customers on price or quality.
• Zippiq may charge commission, listing, or service fees as agreed at onboarding. Payouts are settled on the cycle communicated separately.
• Zippiq may suspend or remove a vendor for repeated cancellations, customer complaints, regulatory issues, prohibited listings, or any breach of these Terms.

6. Partner terms (delivery & transport)

Summary only — the full partner agreement (eligibility, conduct, payments, insurance, loss in transit, deactivation, indemnity, governing law) lives at /partner-terms and is the document a partner accepts at onboarding.

• Delivery partners (bikers fulfilling product orders) and transport partners (auto-rickshaw and taxi drivers providing passenger transport) operate as independent contractors and are not employees, agents, or representatives of Zippiq. Nothing in these Terms creates an employer-employee, partnership, or joint-venture relationship.
• Partners must hold a valid driving licence, valid vehicle registration, and valid insurance, and must comply with the Motor Vehicles Act and applicable transport rules at all times.
• Partners are responsible for the safe handling of goods (delivery) or safe carriage of passengers (transport), including loss, damage, or personal-injury liability arising from their conduct.
• Distance-based pricing is set within Platform guidelines. Payouts are settled on the cycle communicated separately.
• Zippiq may suspend or remove a partner for safety violations, repeated cancellations, customer complaints, fraudulent activity, or any breach of these Terms.

7. Pricing, fees & taxes

• All prices are displayed inclusive of applicable taxes unless stated otherwise. Goods and services taxes (GST) are charged in accordance with Indian law and reflected on your order summary or invoice.
• Platform fee. Every grocery and restaurant order includes a small platform fee that helps cover the cost of running the marketplace, supporting customers, and processing payments. The applicable platform fee for your order is shown in the bill breakdown on the cart screen, along with any promotional discount that may apply to it. Goods and services tax (GST) at the prevailing rate (currently 18%) is charged on the platform fee in accordance with Indian law and is itemised on your invoice.
• Delivery fees are calculated based on distance and may include a base fee, per-kilometre fee, and applicable surge during peak hours, weather, or low partner availability. The total delivery fee, together with GST charged on it, is shown before you confirm the order.
• Transport fares are calculated on distance and time, with applicable surcharges for night-time, waiting, toll, or out-of-area drops.
• Zippiq may revise pricing structures, commissions, platform fees, and other fees from time to time. The fee in force at the moment you confirm the order is the fee that applies to that order; material changes for future orders will be communicated in advance.

8. Payments

Online payments are processed by third-party payment service providers (such as Razorpay) operating under RBI guidelines. Zippiq does not store full card details. Cash on delivery may be available at the discretion of the vendor and partner. Failed payments are auto-reversed by the payment provider as per their standard timelines.

9. Cancellations & refunds

• Customer cancellation before vendor acceptance: free of charge; any prepaid amount is refunded in full.
• Customer cancellation after vendor acceptance: a cancellation fee may apply, particularly for food preparation or perishable items already in progress. The applicable fee is shown before you confirm cancellation.
• Vendor or partner cancellation / non-fulfilment: any prepaid amount is refunded in full and you may receive an alternative quote where available.
• Partial availability: if a vendor delivers fewer items than ordered, the unfilled portion is refunded.
• Quality complaints: raise a complaint within 24 hours of delivery. Eligible refunds are processed at our discretion after review.
• Refund timeline: approved refunds are initiated to your original payment method within 5–7 working days; the time taken to reach your bank or wallet depends on your issuing bank.
• Transport ride cancellations follow the same principle: free before driver acceptance; a cancellation fee may apply after driver dispatch.

10. Delivery & shipping

• Service area: the pilot delivery and transport service is currently operational in Karunagappally, Kerala. Coverage may expand from time to time and is shown to you in-app based on your address.
• Delivery scope: deliveries occur within a vendor’s configured radius. Drop-off locations outside the radius cannot be served.
• Transport scope: pick-up locations must be within the service area. Drop-off can be anywhere, subject to fare and applicable charges shown before you confirm.
• Estimated time of arrival (ETA): ETAs are estimates based on real-time information and may vary due to traffic, weather, vendor preparation time, or partner availability.
• Undeliverable orders: if you are unreachable or unavailable at the delivery address after reasonable attempts, the order may be cancelled. Perishable items may not be refundable in such cases.

11. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Use the Platform for any unlawful, fraudulent, or harmful purpose.
• Place fraudulent or duplicate orders, abuse refund or cancellation policies, or misuse promotional codes.
• Misrepresent your identity, business, vehicle, or licence; impersonate another person; or create multiple accounts to evade restrictions.
• Reverse engineer, scrape, copy, or otherwise extract data from the Platform other than as expressly permitted.
• Interfere with the operation of the Platform, including by uploading malware or attempting to gain unauthorised access.

12. Rewards & points

Zippiq operates an in-app rewards programme that lets you earn points for engaging with the Platform. Participation is optional, free, and governed by these Terms together with any in-app rules surfaced inside the Rewards section.

• How points are earned. Each qualifying day you open the app, a configured number of points is added to your Pendingbalance. On the Nth day of a consecutive streak (the “milestone day”) a bonus is credited to Pending instead of the daily increment. Points-per-day, milestone interval, and bonus amount are configured by Zippiq and may change without notice.
• Pending vs Earned. Pending points are not spendable. Pending points become Earned (i.e. move into your spendable balance) only when you tap the Redeem button inside the app on the milestone day.
• Manual milestone redemption — forfeit rule. You must tap Redeem before midnight India Standard Time (IST) on the milestone day. If you do not, your entire Pending balance is forfeited without compensation and your streak counter resets to Day 1 on your next app open. This rule applies regardless of reason, including device, network, or notification failures.
• Streak breaks. If you do not open the app on a given IST day, your Pending balance is forfeited and the streak counter resets. Earned (spendable) points are not affected by a streak break.
• No cash value. Points (Pending or Earned) have no monetary value, cannot be exchanged for cash, are not legal tender, and are not a deposit, prepaid instrument, or stored-value facility regulated by the Reserve Bank of India. Points are not refundable in cash under any circumstance.
• Non-transferable. Points are personal to your account. They cannot be transferred, sold, gifted, pooled, or assigned to another user, and they cannot be inherited.
• In-app use only. Earned points may only be spent inside the Zippiq app, through the in-product redemption surfaces (currently the Spend-Points catalog described in Section 13). Zippiq may add, change, or remove redemption surfaces at any time.
• Zippiq’s rights. Zippiq reserves the right, at any time and without liability, to (a) change the earning rate, milestone interval, bonus, forfeit rules, or redemption catalog, (b) reset, void, or adjust point balances for accounts engaged in fraud, abuse, multi-accounting, or any breach of these Terms, and (c) suspend or discontinue the rewards programme in whole or in part with reasonable notice through the app or email.
• Suspension of the programme. If Zippiq suspends or pauses the daily-streak programme (whether globally or for a category of users), the following may happen without further notice or liability: (i) daily and milestone credits stop accruing; (ii) existing Pending balances may befrozenat their then-current value and are not actively forfeited; (iii) milestone redeem windows that were open at the time of suspension may be honoured at Zippiq’s sole discretion or expire un-redeemed; and (iv) frozen Pending balances do not become Earned automatically and confer no monetary value. Zippiq has no obligation to restore, convert, or compensate any frozen or forfeited Pending balance if the programme is later resumed or restructured.

13. Coupons & discounts

• Auto-apply. Eligible coupons on your account are applied automatically to your next qualifying cart. The coupon with the soonest expiry is applied first; you cannot manually select which coupon to use, and you cannot save a coupon for a later order. Within a tie of expiry, a built-in priority order applies (completion coupons before onboarding before referral rewards before points-redemption coupons before admin-granted promos).
• Minimum cart threshold. A coupon may carry a minimum cart subtotal, a validity window, and / or a restriction to a specific service vertical (grocery, restaurant, etc.). If your cart does not meet the threshold or the coupon is outside its validity window, the coupon will not be applied and the underlying value is not pro-rated.
• Stacking. At most one coupon applies per cart line (subtotal, delivery, or platform fee). A free-delivery coupon and a free-platform-fee coupon can apply on the same order because they discount different lines.
• Spend-Points catalog. The in-app Spend-Points catalog allows you to convert Earned points into a coupon (currently: free delivery, free platform fee, or a flat-off cart discount). The point cost, coupon value, validity window, minimum cart threshold, and availability are set by Zippiq and may change without notice.
• Points spent are non-refundable. The moment you mint a coupon from the Spend-Points catalog, the point cost is deducted from your Earned balance immediately and irreversibly. The points are not returned if the coupon expires unused, if you cancel the order on which the coupon would have applied, if you delete your account, or if Zippiq changes the catalog after you mint the coupon.
• Refund clawback — coupons. If an order is fully refunded, any coupon redemption attached to that order is reversed automatically (the slot is returned to the underlying coupon’s redemption count) and any unredeemed “order-completion” coupon minted around the lifecycle of that order may be voided. Partial refunds do not trigger coupon clawback — the order still counts as completed at a discounted total.
• Anti-abuse. Zippiq may cancel, void, or refuse to honour any coupon that we reasonably believe was obtained through fraud, manipulation, multi-accounting, or any breach of these Terms.

14. Referral programmes

Zippiq runs two referral programmes. Eligibility, reward values, and windows are configured by Zippiq and may change at any time.

• Friend referral.A new customer may apply a friend’s referral code only before placing their first paid order and only within the signup window (a configured number of days from account creation; currently 30 days, subject to change). Outside either gate, the apply request is rejected. Each account can have at most one referrer; once set it cannot be replaced. Self-referral is not permitted.
• Friend referral reward. The referrer is credited reward points when the referred customer completes a qualifying paid and fulfilled order. An optional signup bonus may also be credited to the referred customer.
• Listing referral.An existing customer may refer a vendor, service provider, or transport partner using the in-app listing-referral flow. Reward credit is granted to the referrer when (a) the referred listing is approved by Zippiq and (b) the vendor activates the listing (“Go Live”). Multiple referrals for the same listing are de-duplicated; the first valid referral wins.
• Refund clawback — referrals. If the qualifying order that triggered a friend-referral credit is later fully refunded, the referrer’s reward credit is reversed (a negative ledger entry is recorded against the referrer’s balance). Listing- referral rewards may also be clawed back if the underlying listing is found to be fraudulent, is suspended for breach of the Vendor or Partner Terms, or never genuinely went live.
• Anti-abuse. Referral farming, fake account creation, incentivising signups for cash, self-referral via a second account, and any other manipulation are grounds for forfeiture of all referral credits, removal from the programme, and account suspension under Section 11.

15. Bookings — clinic, doctor, scan centre, car wash, salon

In addition to grocery and restaurant orders, the Platform supports time-slot bookings for the following service verticals: medical clinics, doctors, scan centres, car-wash services, and salons (the “Bookable Services”). The following rules apply to every booking made through the Platform.

• Discovery & booking, not provision. Zippiq is a discovery and booking platform only. We do not provide, supervise, or take responsibility for any medical consultation, diagnosis, treatment, scan interpretation, vehicle service, or personal-grooming service rendered. Each clinic, doctor, scan centre, car-wash operator, or salon is an independent provider solely responsible for the service, its safety, its outcome, its pricing, and compliance with all applicable laws (including, where relevant, the Clinical Establishments Act, the Atomic Energy (Radiation Protection) Rules, the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, and local licensing).
• Two-step listing approval. A Bookable Service is visible to customers only after (a) the listing has been reviewed and approved by Zippiq and (b) the provider has explicitly activated the listing (“Go Live”) from the provider portal. Approved-but-not-live listings do not accept bookings.
• Slot capacity. Each provider configures their own slot capacity and operating hours. Walk-in customers may also occupy slots; the live availability you see in the app reflects both Platform-booked and walk-in occupancy.
• Cancellation cutoff. Each provider sets a cancellation cutoff (a number of hours before the slot start). Cancelling before the cutoff is free and instant. After the cutoff, in-app cancellation is closed; you may still raise a support ticket, but the provider’s consent is required for any refund and a no-show may not be refundable.
• Modify = replace. For car-wash and salon bookings, submitting a new booking request for the same provider automatically cancels any earlier pending request you have made with that provider. You cannot stack multiple pending requests at the same time.
• Medical disclaimer. Listings and search results are not a recommendation, prescription, or medical advice. You are responsible for verifying the provider’s credentials and the suitability of any service for your needs. In an emergency, contact local emergency services directly — do not use Zippiq for emergency care.

16. AI & synthetic content

Parts of the Platform use AI and machine-learning systems to parse spoken and photographed shopping lists, structure orders, match vendors, score quotes, and moderate content. You acknowledge that automated systems may not always be accurate and that Zippiq does not guarantee the accuracy, reliability, or suitability of AI-generated outputs or recommendations.

You agree not to upload or share Synthetic Content that:

• impersonates Zippiq personnel, vendors, partners, or other Users;
• misrepresents a real individual, business, event, or communication;
• fabricates reviews, ratings, complaints, or evidence;
• simulates customer-support exchanges or transactional confirmations;
• generates fake order receipts, delivery proofs, or KYC documents;
• facilitates fraud, defamation, harassment, or any unlawful purpose.

“Synthetic Content” means AI-generated, digitally altered, machine-generated, or algorithmically manipulated audio, video, image, text, or communication intended to resemble real individuals, businesses, events, or communications. Where applicable law requires disclosure of AI-generated content, you must comply. Zippiq may label, demote, remove, or take down Synthetic Content, suspend accounts that distribute it, and cooperate with regulators or law-enforcement authorities as required.

17. Intellectual property, content licence & counterfeits

The Zippiq name, logo, software, designs, and content are owned by us or our licensors and are protected by Indian and international intellectual property laws. You may not use them without prior written permission. Vendors are responsible for the content of their listings. If you believe a listing infringes your intellectual property or sells counterfeit goods, write to support@zippiq.in with proof of ownership and the listing details for review and takedown.

Licence to your content.When you submit content to the Platform — voice clips, photos of shopping lists, typed orders, reviews, ratings, in-chat messages, listing photos (for vendors) — you grant Zippiq a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, transferable, sublicensable licence to host, store, display, reproduce, analyse, and modify that content for the purposes of operating, improving, and promoting the Platform. This licence specifically includes the right to use de-identified content to train and improve Zippiq’s AI and machine-learning systems (for example, the local-grocery intent parser learning from your corrections). You represent that you own or are otherwise authorised to grant this licence and that your content does not violate anyone else’s rights.

18. Disclaimers & limitation of liability

The Platform is provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Zippiq is not liable for product quality, food safety, delivery delays caused by third parties, transport incidents, or disputes between customers and vendors or partners. Our aggregate liability for any claim arising out of or in connection with the Platform shall not exceed the total amounts paid by you to Zippiq in the three (3) months preceding the event giving rise to the claim. Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited.

Force majeure. Zippiq shall not be liable for delays or failures caused by events beyond our reasonable control, including natural disasters, government actions, pandemics, cyber-attacks, infrastructure failures, internet or utility outages, strikes, civil unrest, or third-party service-provider disruptions (including payment gateways and SMS / WhatsApp providers).

19. Governing law & dispute resolution

These Terms are governed by the laws of India. The parties shall first attempt to resolve any dispute amicably through Zippiq’s grievance redressal process described below. If a dispute cannot be resolved that way within thirty (30) days, it shall be referred to binding arbitration under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, conducted in English by a sole arbitrator, with the seat and venue at Kollam, Kerala. Subject to the arbitration provisions above and to mandatory consumer-law jurisdiction rules, the courts at Kollam, Kerala shall have exclusive jurisdiction over any matter arising out of or in connection with these Terms.

No class actions. To the extent permitted by applicable law, you and Zippiq agree to pursue disputes individually. You waive any right to participate in class actions, representative actions, or collective proceedings against Zippiq. Nothing in this clause limits any non-waivable consumer right available to you under Indian law.

20. Grievance redressal

In accordance with the Information Technology Act, 2000, the rules framed thereunder, and the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020, the contact details of our Grievance Officer are:

We will acknowledge complaints within 48 hours and endeavour to resolve them within 30 days of receipt, in line with the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 and the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020.

21. Changes to terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. Material changes will be notified through the app, email, or a notice on the website. Your continued use of the Platform after the effective date of the change constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

22. Contact

For questions about these Terms, contact us at support@zippiq.in.