Marketplace Agreement
The operating rules of the auction itself — how lots are listed and scheduled, how bidding and closing work, and how a won lot settles, is collected, and is paid out.
1. Scope
This Marketplace Agreement governs conduct on the Ultimate Recycling Inc. auction platform. It is incorporated into, and forms part of, our Terms of Service. Where the two conflict on an auction mechanic, this document controls; on anything else, the Terms of Service control.
It is versioned separately from the Terms so that operational rules can be updated without reopening the whole contract.
2. Listings and Approval
A seller creates a listing through the listing wizard. A listing may contain several committed line items; on approval, each committed line item becomes its own auction with its own end time, bidding, and settlement.
Every submission is reviewed before it goes live. We may approve it, reject it with a reason, or request changes. We are not obliged to approve any listing, and approval is not an endorsement of the material or a verification of its description.
A rejected submission may be corrected and resubmitted. The seller must still meet the listing eligibility requirements in Section 2.3 of the Terms of Service at the moment of each submission.
The auction start time is set by us, not by the seller. The seller chooses the end and pickup window; the lot goes live through approval.
3. Scheduling Constraints
- A lot must run for at least 3 business days.
- A lot must end on a business day between 8:00 AM and 3:00 PM inclusive, so that a close is always followed by staffed hours.
- A pickup slot may be no sooner than 2 business days after submission, and must be a slot with available fleet capacity.
Pickup capacity is finite and shared across all sellers. Selecting a slot reserves it; capacity is re-checked at submission, and a slot that has been taken in the meantime must be replaced before the listing can proceed.
4. Reserve Prices
A seller may set a reserve — the minimum unit price at which they are willing to sell. The reserve is not disclosed to bidders.
If bidding ends below the reserve, the lot does not sell and the seller is under no obligation to transact. Where a reserve is set, the displayed price is held at the reserve until a bid meets or exceeds it, so that the reserve itself is not revealed by watching the price move.
5. Bidding
Bids are placed as a unit price, not a total: dollars per pound for per-pound lots, or dollars per unit for per-unit lots. Your total is the unit price multiplied by the listed quantity, plus the buyer premium.
5.1 Increments
The minimum increment is $0.0025 per pound on per-pound lots and $0.01 per unit on per-unit lots. Increments are fixed and do not scale as the price rises.
5.2 Ceilings
A bid that would commit you beyond your account's spend ceiling is rejected. Ceilings start at $10,000 and rise to $250,000 only on manual approval. A proxy maximum counts against the ceiling at its full value, because the proxy may bid up to it automatically.
5.3 Rate limits and availability
Bidding is rate-limited to protect the platform. A bid is accepted only when the server records it; a bid composed in your browser but not accepted has no effect. We are not liable for a bid that fails to register because of network conditions, device problems, rate limiting, or a service interruption, including one occurring in the final moments of a lot.
6. Proxy Bidding
You may set a proxy maximum — the highest unit price you are willing to pay. The platform then bids on your behalf, in minimum increments, only as far as needed to hold the lead, up to that maximum.
Your proxy maximum is never displayed and never becomes the public price. The leaderboard shows only the price required to hold the lead. If you win with headroom left, you pay the leading price, not your maximum.
Where two proxies overlap, the higher maximum leads at one increment above the lower. Where maximums tie, the earlier-placed proxy leads.
7. Standing Buyer Contracts
Buyers with an active Buyer Premium membership may create standing contracts — instructions to bid automatically on any lot matching a chosen material, up to a maximum unit price.
A contract that fires produces a real, binding bid, with the same irrevocability as a manually placed one. You are responsible for bids your contracts place. Contracts stop running if the membership lapses, but bids already placed stand.
8. Closing and Soft Close
Each lot has a soft-close window, five minutes by default. A bid accepted inside that window extends the end time so that the window runs again from the moment of the bid. This repeats for as long as bidding continues.
The lot closes when the soft-close window elapses with no further accepted bid. The highest bid at that point wins, provided it meets any reserve. The server's clock governs; a countdown shown in your browser is indicative only.
9. Prohibited Conduct
- Shill bidding. A seller must not bid on their own lot, and must not arrange for anyone else to bid on it, to raise the price or trigger a reserve.
- Bid suppression. Bidders must not coordinate to hold a price down or to allocate lots among themselves.
- Ceiling evasion. Holding multiple accounts to exceed a spend ceiling, or to continue bidding after a suspension, is prohibited.
- Off-platform circumvention. Using the platform to identify a counterparty and then transact off it deprives the platform of its fee and is grounds for termination.
- Automated interference. Scripted bidding outside the interfaces we provide, or any attempt to defeat rate limits, is prohibited.
We may void a bid, cancel a lot, reverse an award, or suspend an account where we reasonably believe this section has been breached.
10. Settlement
When a lot closes above reserve, the highest bidder is awarded it and has 72 hours to pay. Payment is buyer- initiated; nothing is charged automatically at close.
The settlement is calculated as follows.
- Lot value = winning unit price × listed quantity, where quantity is listed net weight (gross − tare) for per-pound lots or listed skid count for per-unit lots. Rounded to the cent.
- Seller commission (8–20%, depending on lot value and membership) is calculated on lot value and deducted. Seller proceeds = lot value − commission.
- Buyer premium (5%, or less with Buyer Premium) is calculated on lot value and added. Buyer total = lot value + buyer premium.
Rates are resolved to the nearest one-hundredth of one percent before the money is calculated, and each amount is rounded to the cent once, so proceeds plus commission equal the lot value exactly. Full rate tables are in Section 4 of the Terms of Service.
11. Fulfillment and Collection
After payment is confirmed, we collect the material from the seller with our own fleet and bring it to our facility for the buyer to collect. Co-located pickups may be combined into a single stop, and assignment is subject to per-driver daily capacity.
Our driver records weights, photographs, and a signature at pickup. Title and risk of loss pass to the buyer when loading begins, as set out in Section 9.3 of the Terms of Service.
If the material presented does not match the listing, the driver records the discrepancy and our staff are notified. We may decline to load, hold the payout, or cancel the transaction. There is no automatic refund, automatic penalty, or fixed claims window.
12. Payout Release
Seller proceeds are recorded at settlement and held until the lot is fulfilled. Once released, the seller submits a payout request, we review it, and we settle it externally by the method on file.
Nothing disburses automatically. We do not commit to a settlement interval. We may hold a payout where a dispute, chargeback, discrepancy, or suspected breach is outstanding.
13. Adverse Events
If a buyer's payment is refunded, fails, or is cancelled after the lot was marked paid, the lot returns to awarded status with a fresh payment window, and the buyer may pay again.
If a chargeback or dispute is opened, we place a hold on the related seller payout and our staff are notified. Depending on the outcome we may reinstate the payout, void the transaction, or suspend the account responsible.
If a winning buyer does not pay within the window, the award is forfeited. The lot does not automatically relist and is not automatically offered to the next-highest bidder.
Version 2026-07-24, effective July 24, 2026. New document covering auction conduct: bidding rules, proxy bidding, soft close, settlement, pickup, and payout release.
Prior versions are retained. When we publish a new version we record which version each account accepted and when. See our Terms of Service, Marketplace Agreement, Privacy Policy, and Cookie & Tracking Notice.