FAQs
Last updated: 18 Jan 2022
Executive Summary
To provide the best global arts, culture and entertainment social shopping experience for you on mobile, we have been extremely thoughtful in doing the right things to earn your trust every step along your journey with us. From item authenticity, payment, packaging, shipping to after-sales—your trust is our number one priority.
We are proudly built on Dapper Labs' Flow blockchain—the same blockchain as NBA Top Shot, UFC, La Liga, NFL, Ubisoft, Warner Music Group and many more. We chose to develop on this blockchain because of its security, close to 0 gas fees (great for creators), high throughput (transactions per second) and developer-friendliness. We are also looking to support multiple chains to improve our experience for artists and patrons.
Authenticity:
For NFTs, you can track the item authenticity (i.e. artist Flow address, NFT transaction) with a simple tap under the 'Info' section of the 'Product' screen. It will take you to the associated Flowscan website.
For physical work, you should expect a Certificate of Authenticity issued and shipped to you for every single order. Example here. To further our vision, we are currently working on linking NFTs to physical works to offer resale royalties to our physical artists—one of the first of its kind in the physical art world—as well as to make tracking the authenticity and provenance of listed physical works even easier for our patrons.
Payment:
Stripe (valued at US $95 billion as of March 2021) is one the most secure payment gateways to process your card details. PCI Level 1 Compliant; SSL/TLS Secure; and AES-256 encrypted. We can never, ever, see your card details. We support paying with credit card via Stripe for both physical work and NFTs (coming soon).
For NFTs, you will need to connect to the Blocto crypto wallet, one of the major crypto wallets that support Flow, ETH and many more cryptocurrencies. We have made connecting to Blocto very simple in-app: simply navigate to 'Payments' under 'Settings', sign up / sign in with your e-mail and you will have your Flow address instantaneously (displayed publicly on your profile). Or you can just directly click 'Buy Now' on the NFT 'Product' screen to collect the NFT of your choice!
If you have insufficient Flow tokens on your Flow address, you can download the Blocto mobile app to easily buy more Flow tokens with credit cards or Apple Pay via Moonpay, 'Paypal for crypto'. See tutorials below.
By default, Blocto manages your private key with something called custodial mode, so you don't have to worry about losing your private key. You can find out more about their key management model here.
Packaging: for every physical listing, sellers agree to comply with our careful and secure packaging guidelines to give you a peace of mind when your work arrives.
Shipping & Insurance: for physical works, we are pleased to offer you the best shipping methods with our 3PL partner EasyPost, which is invested by the likes of GV (Google Ventures). It is integrated with DHL, UPS, SF Express and many more. We are also delighted to offer you the simplest and most convenient shipping insurance solution for you at affordable premiums. With our one-click EasyPost Shipping Insurance being available at checkout, you can protect your packages from the unknown for just 1% of the package value, with a $1 minimum. Maximum coverage is up to USD $5,000 per shipment. See more below.
After-sales: if you are happy, benissimo! Artists will be paid out 80% almost instantaneously—unparalleled when compared to other channels.
Alas if you are not happy with your physical work, you can always count on our 14 calendar days money-back guarantee!
For NFTs, there is no refund and all sales are final.
We sincerely hope you and your friends have a lot of fun buying physical and NFT works with us for many years to come!
ABOUT PAYMENTS & PRICES
How can I buy NFTs with Flow? Where can I buy Flow tokens?
First you need to have a Flow address connected to Blocto in-app. You can then download the Blocto app to buy Flow tokens. Please follow below tutorials.
What is Stripe, and why can I trust it with my card details?
Stripe is a global online payment gateway that is trusted by millions of businesses of all sizes—from startups like us to large enterprises such as Amazon, Spotify and Uber. 90% of US adults have bought from businesses using Stripe. It is one of the top unicorn companies graduated from the prestigious Y Combinator accelerator program; and as of March 2021, the company is valued at US $95 billion.
PCI Level 1 Compliant: Stripe has been audited by a Payment Card Industry (PCI) certified auditor and is certified to PCI Service Provider Level 1, which is the most stringent level of certification available in the payments industry. To accomplish this, they use best-in-class security tools and practices to maintain a high level of security.
SSL/TLS Secure: Stripe also forces HTTPS for all services using TLS (SSL), including their public website.
AES-256 Encrypted: all card numbers are encrypted at rest with Advanced Encryption Standard (AES-256). Decryption keys are stored on separate machines. None of Stripe’s internal servers and daemons can obtain plaintext card numbers but can request that cards are sent to a service provider on a static whitelist. Stripe’s infrastructure for storing, decrypting, and transmitting card numbers runs in a separate hosting environment, and doesn’t share any credentials with Stripe’s primary services (API, website, etc.).
For more information, please see Clause 12 Price and Payment policy.
What does Incremental Value (IV) mean?
At PONS.ai, we always try to innovate for the better. Compared to traditional editioned works on other platforms, here we are proud to implement something rare compared to other platforms that we call 'Appreciating Limited Editions'. This is so that the price of the work more accurately reflects its scarcity and the demand for it.
Consider a case with a base price (BP) of HKD 2,000 and an incremental value (IV) of HKD 200:
Edition #1 of physical print / NFT = HKD 2,000 (BP)
Edition #2 = HKD 2,200 (BP + IV)
Edition #3 = HKD 2,400 (BP + IV x 2)
etc.
ABOUT PHYSICAL ART
How are artworks/items packaged by artists? And when will they be dispatched?
By posting a listing of their artwork/product, artists agree to comply with our careful and secure packaging guidelines, which help guarantee that your purchased items will arrive in their optimal condition and give you peace of mind.
According to our terms, all sellers must fulfil and dispatch the items within three (3) business days of the date of delivery, unless stated otherwise on the 'Product' screen by the artist. If this is not honoured, buyers have the right to cancel the order and will receive a refund (less any reasonable deductions according to our Terms).
All works should be assumed to be shipped unframed (unless indicated otherwise by the artist e.g. the frame is part of the artwork). Please contact us at support@pons.ai regarding any framing queries and we will try our best to assist.
Also if you have multiple items in your shopping cart, unfortunately as of right now we can only treat the packaging and delivery of such items individually (i.e. we cannot process multiple items aggregated in one parcel).
For more details please read Clause 4 & 9 of our Terms & Conditions.
What shipping options are available? Can I add shipping insurance?
We have partnered up with EasyPost, a third-party logistics (3PL) provider that has integration with 100+ courier solutions globally, such as DHL, UPS, FedEx, Royal Mail, SF Express and many more. Their technology is seamlessly integrated with our mobile app platform, and it automatically calculates and shows you the best shipping options (incl. any taxes and duties required) in real-time. So simply choose the best courier option for you at checkout.
Convenience: with one click of a button you can choose to add shipping insurance provided by EasyPost at checkout, and their insurance will cover up to USD $5,000 per shipment. If you need to make a claim with them, details are here.
Affordable Premiums: you can protect your packages from the unknown for just 1% of the package value, with a $1 minimum.
Simple Claims: EasyPost's claim process takes less than 10 minutes to complete online. No long forms, no double talk.
Quick Reimbursement: reimbursement will be issued within 10 business days of claim completion.
If you would like to have an alternative shipping insurance for your purchased items (regardless of the carrier you use), please kindly consider purchasing that yourself from third-party insurance providers (e.g. UPS Capital, case study here).
Declared value and limits of liability: before choosing your courier option, it is also very important to check the declared value and limits of liability section of the courier's terms, because they can differ significantly from courier to courier. Take FedEx as an example, shipments containing artworks and antiques are limited to a maximum declared value for carriage of US Dollars One Thousand (US$1,000) per shipment or US Dollars Twenty (US$20.00) per kilogram (US$9.07 per pound), whichever is greater.
For more details please check our Clause 13 Shipping policy.
How can I ensure authenticity of the artworks/items?
For every item, we strongly encourage all artists and sellers to upload a digital copy of their Certificate of Authenticity (CoA) along with their listing (which you can view in the 'Checkout' screen). While uploading a digital CoA copy is not compulsory, it should be expected for every order on PONS.ai. Example here. A signed physical copy of the CoA issued to the patron must also be packaged and shipped along with the item.
For any artists/sellers who would like to use our CoA template, the link is here.
To further our vision, we are currently working on utilising the blockchain technology (e.g. NFTs) to offer resale royalties to our artists, the first of its kind in the physical art world, as well as making this even easier and more secure for patrons.
How can I track my order?
Simply go to your order item located in 'My Orders' screen under 'Settings'.
How much and when do artists get paid?
We pride ourselves in giving artists a fair share of what they truly deserve. So while we have many costs as a technology company, we still payout to artists 80% of the total item sales price, which is without a doubt one of the highest in the world of art business (feel free to take a look at the commission structure of our peers).
We also want to help artists get paid ASAP—the fastest relative to our peers, so they can best manage their cashflows by listing with us. So as a patron, as soon as you are happy with the work that you received, please toggle the Happy button immediately (located at the top of your Order Item screen), so the artist will be compensated instantaneously.
In any case, once 14 calendar days have elapsed since the date of shipment arrival, the artist will, and should be compensated for their work.
Alas, what should I do if I am not happy with the purchased items?
We are so sorry to hear this. Please go to your order item and click the 'Report Issue' button and tell us what went wrong. Our customer support team will be in touch ASAP to resolve the problem for you.
If you would like a repair or replacement, we will do our absolute best to help arrange that for you with the artist/seller.
If you would like a refund, then you can trust us with our 14 calendar days money-back guarantee from the date of shipment arrival. You should see the refund as a credit approximately 5-10 business days later, depending upon the bank.
For more details, please check our Clause 10 Return policy.
ABOUT ARTIST SELL FLOW
I am an artist on Android, and my artwork images don't seem to appear on the top selections of the 'Sell' screen?
Currently for artists on Android, please kindly create a gallery folder on your phone named '+' and put all your artwork images to be listed in it. Reload the app and you will be able to see them appear as the top selections of the 'Sell' screen.
I am an artist, and can't seem to edit my selections of artwork images on the 'Sell' screen?
If for some reason you are not prompted to change the selection of artwork images, please kindly go to your phone's Settings, select PONS.ai app, and edit selected photos there.