What you actually signed to start selling.
You clicked “I agree” and started shipping. But the supplier agreement decides your fees, your deductions, your payment timing and how disputes go. Here are the clauses sellers skip — and why the money ones are worth ten minutes of your attention.
- The supplier agreement is the contract that governs your whole relationship with a marketplace.
- It sets fees, permitted deductions, payment timing, liability for loss and damage, and the dispute process.
- Fee schedules are usually referenced as separate, updatable documents — your cost base can move.
- Knowing what the contract permits is what lets you tell a legitimate deduction from a wrongful one.
- Robnu holds your settlements to the money terms; it is not legal advice — read the agreement and consult a professional.
Nobody reads the supplier agreement. It is long, it is dense, and the “I agree” button is right there. But that document is the rulebook for every rupee that flows between you and the marketplace — and not knowing the rules is how sellers pay deductions they could have disputed. This guide walks the clauses that actually matter. It is general information, not legal advice: for anything material, read your specific agreement and consult a professional.
The supplier agreement is the least-read, most-important document in a marketplace seller’s business. It does not just describe the relationship — it defines the economics of every order, the timing of every rupee, and the rules of every dispute. You are already bound by it; the only question is whether you understand what you are bound to.
What the agreement actually is
When you onboarded — on AJIO, Meesho, Amazon or Flipkart — you accepted a supplier agreement: the contract governing your relationship with the platform. It is not a formality behind the signup flow; it is the operative document behind your fees, your deductions, your payments and your risk. It was one of the documents you signed to sell, and unlike your GSTIN or bank proof, it keeps shaping your business long after onboarding.
Fees and how they can change
The agreement sets out the fees and commissions you pay — but rarely as fixed numbers in the contract body. Instead it usually references separate fee schedules that the marketplace can update, reserving the right to revise fees and policies with notice. The consequence is easy to miss: your cost base is not static. A commission revision in a category can quietly change the margin on every order you sell there. Watching fee updates — and re-checking your per-order profit when they land — is part of the job the agreement quietly hands you.
The deductions clause — the money spine of the contract
The most financially consequential part of the agreement is the clause establishing the marketplace’s right to deduct from your settlements: commissions, logistics, return and RTO costs, penalties and taxes. The agreement sets the framework; the exact amounts live in the fee schedules and policy documents it references. This clause is the foundation of everything on the money side, because it draws the line between a deduction the contract permits and one that is an error you can dispute. Reconciliation is, at heart, checking your settlements against what this clause actually allows — the whole point of payout reconciliation and payment reconciliation. Every deduction type is defined in the deductions glossary.
Liability for loss, damage and returns
Who pays when a parcel is lost, damaged or never delivered? The agreement and its associated logistics and claims policies allocate that liability, and it varies by platform and scenario. Some losses fall on you, some on the platform or courier — and the claims process is how you recover the ones that are not yours to bear. The trap is absorbing costs that were never your responsibility simply because you did not know where the line sat or missed the deadline to claim. Our guides on RTO recovery and the claim deadlines cheatsheet turn this clause into recovered money.
Payment timing and the settlement cycle
The payment terms define your settlement cycle — how long after a sale you are paid, when returns claw back, and any holds or reserves. This is not a footnote; it is your cash flow. A seller who does not know their settlement timing cannot plan working capital, and cannot tell when a payout is genuinely late versus simply on schedule. Our overview of marketplace settlement cycles unpacks how the timing works across platforms.
Disputes, deadlines and keeping your copy
Finally, the agreement sets out how disputes are handled and the deadlines that bind them — and deadlines are where rights quietly expire. A wrongful deduction you can prove is still lost if you raise it outside the window. Keep a copy of the agreement and the fee schedules and policies in force when you onboarded, note the version and date, and track changes since — because holding a marketplace to a term means holding it to the version that actually applied to that order. For the bigger picture of your rights, see our guide on legal options for sellers.
The agreement is a living document
The most common mistake sellers make with the supplier agreement is treating it as a one-time event — a click at onboarding, then never revisited. But the agreement, and especially the fee schedules and policies it references, is a living document. Fees get revised, policies get updated, deduction rules change, and the terms that governed an order last year may not be the terms that govern one this quarter. A seller who read the agreement once, carefully, and never again is working from an outdated understanding of their own economics.
The practical response is not to re-read the whole contract every month — it is to watch for change and to check its effect where it matters: your money. When a fee schedule updates, re-run your per-order profit in the affected categories. When a deduction policy shifts, make sure your reconciliation is testing against the new rule, not the old one. Keeping the version you agreed to on record, and tracking what has changed since, is what lets you tell whether a given deduction was legitimate under the terms that actually applied to that order — which is the whole foundation of a defensible payout reconciliation. The contract is the rulebook, and the rulebook gets edited; staying current with it is part of protecting your revenue.
Sources & further reading
Supplier agreements, fee schedules and policies are platform-specific and change over time, and their interpretation can have real legal consequences. This is general information, not legal advice — read your own agreement, and for the tax and registration obligations it assumes, confirm with the official portals and a professional:
Five clauses worth reading twice
You do not need to memorise the contract — but these five decide your money and your risk.
- Fees. What you pay, and the marketplace’s right to revise it.
- Deductions. What can be taken from your settlements — the line between permitted and wrongful.
- Liability. Who bears loss, damage and non-delivery — and what you can claim back.
- Payment timing. Your settlement cycle, holds and clawbacks — your cash flow.
- Disputes. How you raise a problem and the deadline before the right expires.
How the terms show up in your payout
The agreement is abstract until settlement day, when every clause becomes a number.
You accept the terms
Fees, deductions, liability and payment timing are all set the moment you click “I agree” — usually without reading them.
Deductions hit
Each settlement applies the fee schedule and deduction clause to your orders — correctly, or with the errors that hide at scale.
You reconcile
Reconciliation compares what was deducted against what the contract permits — surfacing the wrongful charges.
You claim in time
The dispute clause and its deadline decide whether a proven error becomes recovered money or an expired right.
How Robnu holds your settlements to the terms
Robnu is an agentic OMS, not a law firm, and it is not a substitute for legal advice — read your agreement, and consult a professional for anything material. What Robnu does is enforce the money side of the contract in practice, order after order.
It reads your AJIO, Meesho and Amazon settlements, checks each deduction against what the agreement and fee schedules permit, and flags the ones that do not fit — wrong commissions, duplicate charges, inflated weights. Then it prepares the claim and files it inside the dispute window, with a rare approval click while fully-autonomous filing rolls out. The contract sets the rules; Robnu is what actually holds your settlements to them.
You sell, Robnu runs the rest and makes sure every rupee is paid according to the terms you agreed to.
The supplier agreement, answered
It is the contract you accept when you onboard as a seller — the terms that govern your relationship with the marketplace. It sets out the fees and commissions you pay, the deductions that can be applied, how and when you are paid, your obligations on dispatch and quality, who bears liability for what, and how disputes are resolved. Most sellers accept it with a click and never read it, yet it is the document that decides the economics of every order they ship.
You do not need to memorise it, but you should understand the clauses that touch your money and your risk: fees and how they can change, the deductions the platform may apply, payment timing, liability for returns and damages, and the dispute and claim process with its deadlines. Those clauses are the rules of the game you are already playing; not knowing them means you cannot tell a legitimate deduction from a wrongful one.
Typically the agreement reserves the marketplace's right to revise fees, commissions and policies, often with notice through the seller panel or by updated terms. That is why fee schedules are usually referenced as separate, updatable documents rather than fixed in the contract body. The practical takeaway: your cost base can move, so you have to watch fee updates and re-check your margins when they change.
The agreement establishes the marketplace's right to deduct commissions, logistics, return and RTO costs, penalties and taxes from your settlements. It defines the framework; the specific amounts live in fee schedules and policy documents it references. Understanding this clause is what lets you separate a deduction the contract permits from an error you can dispute — the foundation of payout reconciliation.
The allocation of liability for loss, damage and non-delivery is set out in the agreement and the associated logistics and claims policies, and it varies by platform and scenario. Some losses are the seller's, some the platform's or courier's, and the claims process is how you recover the ones that are not yours to bear. Knowing where the line sits — and the deadline to claim — is essential to not absorbing costs that were never yours.
Payment terms in the agreement define your settlement cycle — how long after a sale you are paid, when returns claw back, and any holds or reserves. This directly shapes your cash flow. A seller who does not know their settlement timing cannot plan working capital or spot a payout that is late against the terms they agreed to.
Keep a copy of the agreement you accepted and the fee schedules and policies in force when you onboarded, and note the version and date. Because terms update, having the version you agreed to — and tracking changes since — is what lets you hold the marketplace to the terms that actually applied to a given order. Treat it like any other business record.
Robnu is an agentic OMS, not a law firm and not a substitute for legal advice — read the agreement, and consult a professional for anything material. What Robnu does is enforce the money side of the terms in practice: it checks that the deductions applied to you match what the agreement and fee schedules permit, flags the ones that do not, and prepares the claim. The contract sets the rules; Robnu holds your settlements to them.
Related seller guides
More on the operations, money and claims that decide whether a marketplace catalogue actually makes money.
Myntra Partner Account Problems and How to Fix Them
Approval delays, brand authorization rejections, QC and listing suspensions, inventory sync errors, payment holds, SLA warnings, login and GST mismatches — the common Myntra partner account issues and the practical steps to resolve each one.
Listing Suppressed? Reasons Marketplace by Marketplace
A suppressed listing is hidden from buyers but not deleted — and it is almost always fixable. The common reasons across Meesho, Amazon and Flipkart, and how to get relisted.
Account health metrics that actually trigger action
Which seller metrics carry real consequences, which are informational, and the quiet four-stage sequence that runs before a restriction ever appears.
AJIO return disputes: process, timelines and evidence
When a fashion return comes back wrong, used or short, you have a claim — but only inside a window that runs from receipt and only with evidence captured on arrival.
Flipkart Return Charges for Sellers: What You Pay and the SPF Basics
Every Flipkart return has a cost stack — reverse logistics, lost margin, and the seller protection fund basics. Here is what you actually pay, which charges are wrong often enough to check, and how to claim.
Can you change your Meesho SLA? The honest answer
There is no SLA field to edit. What you can actually adjust — working days, holiday mode, pickup timing, batch start — and why that buys you the same hours.
Amazon India account deactivated: what works in appeals
Deactivation stops your income overnight and generic appeals fail. The Plan of Action that gets an account back — root cause, correction, prevention — and how to never need it.
TCS Reconciliation: From Marketplace Reports to Your GSTR
The TCS a marketplace deducts should equal the TCS it deposits against your GSTIN — but only reconciliation proves it. Here is how to match TCS collected to TCS credited, from settlement report to GST return.