POLICIES

Our Rules

We welcome and support pre-launch products in a variety of categories: Tech & Innovation; Beauty & Wellness; Home Goods; Creative Works; Sports & Outdoors; and More Categories. Here are five rules every CrowdMall product campaign must follow.

Products must aim to meet customer needs

CrowdMall can be used to create all sorts of concrete items, including: art; gadgets; tools; and consumable goods. But every product needs a plan for creating something that resonates with customers. Creators should be able to say: “Buy and enjoy my product”

Product and buyer data must be honest and clearly presented

CrowdMall is built on trust and communication. Creators can’t mislead people or misrepresent facts. Product campaigns need to share accurate specifications and how they plan to achieve them. When a campaign involves manufacturing and distributing a product, like a gadget, we require projects to show buyers representative images of what they’re making: we prohibit the use of misleading photos and videos. Creators must not misrepresent or artificially inflate the number of buyers or units pre-sold when promoting their products to potential customers:

• Work-in-progress product imagery should reflect an item’s current state: it must not include any CGI or special effects to show functionality that does not yet exist. If a product requires software and hardware integration, creators need to reveal any such dependency clearly – or disclose that it has not yet been developed.
• Misleading imagery includes photorealistic renderings and heavily edited or manipulated images or videos that could give buyers a false impression of a product’s current stage of development.

Additional context on our rules requiring work-in-progress products and prohibiting misleading imagery can be found here. Further guidance on crafting an honest and clearly presented product campaign can be found here. Additional context on presenting data about buyers can be found here.

Projects can’t seek donations for charity exclusively

Charities and nonprofits are welcome to launch products on CrowdMall, but campaigns must raise funds to make tangible goods rather than comprise initiatives that only drive donations to a charity or cause. Funds raised on CrowdMall must go towards making the product outlined by the creator on the product campaign page. Any profits made once the products have been made can be spent at the discretion of the creator, including the donation of such profits to charity.

Projects can't offer equity

Investment is not permitted on CrowdMall. Product campaigns can't offer incentives like equity, revenue sharing, or investment opportunities.

Projects can't involve prohibited items

We prohibit products that are illegal, heavily regulated, or potentially dangerous for buyers to use or consume, including:

• Any item claiming to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent an illness or condition (whether via a device, app, book, nutritional supplement, or other means).
• Products that encourage gambling.
• Energy food and drinks.
• Offensive material (e.g., hate speech, encouraging violence against others, etc).
• Creating a genetically modified organism.
• Products that tie into or promote financial, money-processing, or credit services; financial intermediaries or cash-equivalent instruments; travel services (e.g., vacation packages); phone services (e.g., prepaid phone services, 900 numbers); and business marketing services.
• Products that raise money for political purposes.
• Pornographic material.
• Projects that promote discrimination, bigotry, or intolerance towards marginalized groups
• Products that already exist, or are repackaged from items that are previously created, without adding anything new or aiming to iterate on the idea in any way.
• No reselling of products from other vendors is allowed.
• Drugs, nicotine, tobacco, vaporizers and related paraphernalia.
• Weapons, replicas of weapons, and weapon accessories.

If your project involves something illegal, heavily regulated, or potentially dangerous for buyers and it is not on this list, please contact us before applying to list your product.

These rules for product creators don't cover every possible use of CrowdMall, but they explain our purpose and perspective. Final decisions regarding which projects are appropriate for CrowdMall approval are based on these rules and are made at our discretion.

We value community.
View our policies for etiquette on CrowdMall.

Have a question about starting a project? We're here to help.

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