Policies for Marketplace

What types of posts are accepted?

The Marketplace is a way for parents to buy, sell, trade, or give away items directly to/from other parents on the list. Here are the categories in the Marketplace:

  • Donations for nonprofits: Requests from schools, hospitals, shelters, womens' and childrens' programs, and donation offers from parents.
  • Barter/trade: Goods & services a parent is offering in exchange for other goods & services.
  • Free: Parents giving away kids' stuff and household items, pets, etc.
  • Garage sales, rummage sales, and swap meets that take place at a parent's home or at a nonprofit venue such as a school, church, or similar organization. Note BPN doesn't accept posts where an admission fee is requested to participate.
  • Housing: Seeking or offering housing, house shares, rentals, etc. (See restrictions below)
  • For Sale: Items you acquired for your personal use that you no longer need
  • Wanted: Seeking specific items, free or not

See also: Prohibited Items on BPN

What types of postings are NOT accepted? 

  • Services are not accepted in Marketplace.  This includes pet sitting, house sitting, housekeeping, and gardening.  Only items for sale can be offered. 

  • Businesses may not offer items in Marketplace, including housing placement and rentals (see below). 

  • Parents may not use Marketplace to generate income by posting items acquired solely for the purpose of selling them. BPN considers this to be a resale business. The items that are posted on Marketplace must be items that you acquired for your personal use and don't need any more. If you are frequently posting items for sale, BPN will consider you to be a business. See Multiple Listings and Repeated Postings. 

  • It is a violation of BPN's policies to acquire free items on BPN in order to re-sell them.

  • There are some items such as prescription drugs that BPN doesn't accept - see Prohibited Items on BPN

Marketplace postings should conform to the policy on advertising and commercial use. When we discover that someone is posting items for a business, or buying items for resale, we unsubscribe them.

Multiple Listings and Repeated Postings 

Marketplace is intended for items that you acquired for your personal use and don't need any more. It is a misuse of BPN to sell items that you acquired for the purpose of reselling.

  • There is a maximum of 3 active postings at a time from the same subscriber, per BPN's policy on Repeated postings.  If you have more than 3 items for sale, unpublish one of your posts when you sell the item and you can then post a new one, or group multiple items into one post, or consider using craigslist or similar if you have a lot to sell.  
  • The same item can be posted no more than 3 times. If you have not been able to sell your item after posting it 3 times, please try a different venue such as craigslist. 
  • There is a maximum of 20 items for sale per year. If you are selling more items than that, BPN considers you to be a resale business. We don't accept posts from businesses in the Marketplace listing.

The "Housing" Section 

This section is for parents who are looking for or offering local housing including sublets, shared housing, temporary housing, house-sits, and housing exchanges.

NOT accepted in the Housing section:
  • Housing that is not in the SF Bay Area (exception: out-of-town house exchanges with Bay Area families)
  • Posts from agencies, realtors, or individuals that manage rental properties for income
  • Offers of housing-related services such as house-sitting or pet-sitting

Rental scams: A few times in the past, a scammer has pretended to be a local parent in order to subscribe to BPN and then post about a fake rental. (See our page about this: "Rental Scams.") Moderators usually can spot these since all new subscriptions are reviewed by a BPN moderator, and all posts are reviewed too. But please contact us if you notice a suspicious housing post in the Marketplace.

Privacy Policy 

BPN's privacy policy applies to the Marketplace, just the same as for all other content on BPN. This means that members may not send unwanted email to someone who posts to Marketplace, such as complaints about a posting, or anything that could be construed as unsolicited advertising for a business.

BPN's Disclaimer 

We ask people to please keep in mind that BPN has no control over the transactions that arise from Marketplace postings between members. We have no way to guarantee that prices posted in the Marketplace are fair, or that the condition of items for sale is accurately reported. We cannot regulate the negotiations that take place between buyer and seller, or the etiquette that is practiced on either side. While we offer the guidelines above, we add this warning: Let the buyer beware!