Terms of service

Ellanat is a managed cross-border trade service operated by Ellanat. Buyers tell us what they need; we find suppliers we have checked, agree a price, hold the payment, check the shipping documents and release the money to the supplier once delivery is confirmed.

Ellanat is not a classified-ads site and not a directory. We are a party to the trade, not an introduction service — which is the whole reason the protections in these terms can exist at all.

By opening an account, sending a request, submitting a quote or accepting one, you agree to these terms.

• Buyer — the business sourcing goods through Ellanat.
• Supplier — the business offering goods through Ellanat.
• Trade desk — Ellanat’s own staff, who read every request, select the suppliers, compare the quotes and check the documents.
• Request — a description of what a buyer needs: goods, quantity, specification, destination and date.
• Quote — a supplier’s offer against a request. A buyer never sees the supplier’s own figure; they see the price Ellanat presents, with our commission already inside it.
• Deal — one agreed trade, from the accepted quote to the confirmed delivery.
• Safe Hold — money a buyer has paid to Ellanat which we hold against a specific deal and have not yet paid out.
• Commission — what Ellanat earns on a deal. It is inside the quoted price, disclosed before the buyer accepts anything.

On a normal deal there are two contracts, not one: the buyer buys from Ellanat, and Ellanat buys from the supplier. Neither of you has a contract with the other.

That is the arrangement that lets a first-time buyer in Kabul and a first-time supplier in Guangzhou trade at all. The buyer does not have to trust a stranger with a wire transfer, and the supplier does not have to ship on a promise. Both of you are dealing with a business that can be held to account in one place.

It also means we take real risk. So the rules in sections 7 to 12 are not bureaucracy — they are the conditions on which that risk is bearable.

An account is for a business, not a consumer. You must be at least 18, authorised to act for the business you register, and give us information that is true.

You are responsible for what happens under your login. Tell us straight away at support@ellanat.com if you think somebody else has it.

One business, one account. Several people may be on it with different roles; several accounts for the same business, used to send the same request twice or to bid against yourself, is grounds for suspension.

Before a supplier can receive a request we check their registration documents, their tax number, their address and that a real person answers. Buyers are verified before they can accept a quote.

Verification means we checked the documents we asked for on the day we asked for them. It is not a guarantee of solvency, of product quality, or of future conduct, and we do not present it as one.

We may re-check at any time, and we may suspend a verified badge if something we relied on turns out to be false. If we do, you will be told what it was.

A request costs nothing and commits you to nothing. It is read by a person on our desk, not scored by a machine.

We select which verified suppliers see a request. We do not put every request to every supplier, and we do not let suppliers see each other or see the buyer.

A quote we present to a buyer carries one price, with our commission inside it. The figure you see is the figure you pay. There is no listing fee, no subscription, and no charge for posting a request or for receiving one.

A quote is open for the period stated on it. Once a buyer accepts, the price, quantity, incoterm, lead time and destination on that quote become the terms of the deal, and changing any of them is a new agreement on both sides.

A buyer pays Ellanat, never the supplier. We hold that money against the specific deal it was paid for and pay it out only as section 9 describes.

Money in Safe Hold is not ours. We do not treat it as revenue, we do not spend it on our own costs, and we account for it as an obligation we owe you until the deal is settled. It does not earn interest for anybody, including us.

Ellanat is not a bank, is not a licensed payment institution, and Safe Hold is not a deposit account or an insured escrow arrangement. It is a contractual hold operated by Ellanat on the terms in this document. If that distinction matters to your own compliance, read it carefully before you pay.

We accept payment by the methods shown at the time. A payment is in Safe Hold when we have actually received and confirmed it — not when you have instructed your bank.

A supplier is cleared to ship once the buyer’s payment is secured. Nobody is asked to send goods against a promise.

Each deal has a list of documents the route requires — commercial invoice, packing list, bill of lading or airway bill, certificate of origin, and whatever else that corridor needs. The supplier uploads them; a person on our desk reads each one.

Uploading a document releases nothing. A document is accepted, or it is rejected with the reason and has to be corrected. This is the step that most often saves a deal, and it is the step nobody can skip.

The buyer confirms delivery when the goods arrive. If they do not arrive, or arrive wrong, do not confirm — raise it under section 11 while the money is still held. That is the whole point of it being held.

Money leaves Safe Hold when all three are true: the required documents have been accepted, the buyer has confirmed delivery, and no dispute is open.

Where a deal is agreed in stages — a deposit against production, the balance against the bill of lading — each stage has its own release condition, stated on the deal before the buyer accepts it.

We pay suppliers to the payout account on their verified business profile and nowhere else. A change of payout details is treated as a verification event, not as an edit: we re-check before we pay.

If a buyer neither confirms delivery nor raises a problem, and the documents show the goods were delivered, we may release payment after the period stated on the deal — having told the buyer first, in writing, with the evidence we are relying on.

Trade anything whose export or import is prohibited or restricted in either country, or anything on a sanctions list. This includes weapons and their parts, narcotics and their precursors, protected wildlife and its products, counterfeit goods, and cultural property removed unlawfully.

Give us false documents, a false address, a false tax number, or another business’s papers.

Use Ellanat to launder money, to move funds for a sanctioned person, or to invoice for goods that do not exist.

Post goods you cannot supply, quantities you cannot meet, or prices you do not intend to honour.

Scrape, copy or resell the directory, or use it to build a competing list.

While a deal is live, and for six months after it closes, you may not take that trade off the platform — no direct payment between buyer and supplier for goods sourced here, and no arrangement that has the same effect.

This is not possessiveness. Every protection in this document exists because the money and the documents pass through us. A deal moved off-platform has none of it: no held payment, no document check, and nobody to complain to. The buyer who does it has given a stranger a wire transfer, which is exactly the position Ellanat exists to spare them.

For that reason we withhold a supplier’s name and contact details from the buyer until the deal is agreed, and we withhold the buyer’s from the supplier. Asking a counterparty for details we have not given you, or giving yours in a message, is a breach of this section.

A trade taken off-platform in breach of this section leaves the commission owed to us all the same, and we may suspend the accounts involved.

Raise it on the deal, in writing, before confirming delivery. Money that is still held can be returned; money already paid out has to be recovered from somebody, which is slower and sometimes impossible.

We will ask both sides for their account and for evidence — photographs, the inspection certificate, the weighbridge ticket, the survey report. We read both. A decision names what we relied on.

What we can decide is what happens to the money we hold: release it, return it, or split it. We can also require a replacement shipment or a price adjustment as the condition of release.

What we cannot do is act as a court. If you do not accept our decision, these terms do not take away any right you have to go to one.

Refunds are governed by the refund policy, which forms part of these terms.

We are responsible for doing what this document says we do: selecting verified suppliers, holding your payment as described, checking the documents properly, and being reachable while a deal is live.

We are not responsible for a carrier’s delay, a border closure, a customs decision, a change in duty, a currency move, a war, a strike, or weather. Where one of those hits a live deal we will tell you what we know and what your options are, but we do not carry the loss.

We do not manufacture, inspect at source unless the deal says we do, or guarantee that goods will satisfy a purpose you have not told us about. Specifications are what the deal says; anything you have not written down is not part of it.

Except where the law does not allow it to be limited, our liability on any deal is capped at the money we hold or held on that deal, plus our commission on it. We are not liable for lost profit, lost contracts or reputational loss.

You may close your account whenever you like, provided no deal is live. Records of closed deals are kept as section 6 of the privacy policy describes — we are required to keep them.

We may suspend or close an account that breaches these terms, that gives us false information, that is used for prohibited goods, or where we are required to by law or by a sanctions obligation. Where we can tell you why, we will.

A suspension does not cancel a live deal. Money already in Safe Hold is dealt with under sections 9 and 12, not kept.

We will change these terms from time to time. The date at the top says when they last changed.

A change that affects a live deal does not apply to it: the version you accepted governs that deal to its end. For anything material we give notice before it takes effect, to the address on your account.

The governing law and the forum for a dispute are stated in the order confirmation for each deal. Where they are not, the law of the place where Ellanat is registered applies.

Write to legal@ellanat.com about anything in this document, or to support@ellanat.com about a deal.