Terms of sale

1. The agreement between us

When you place an order through The Cattle Exchange, you enter into an agreement with The Cattle Exchange (Pty) Ltd (registration 2016/453432/07), referred to throughout as the Exchange, for the sale of the animals described in that order. The Exchange is the seller in every transaction on this site, and your contract is with us alone. These terms, together with the details recorded on your order and the policies to which they refer, constitute the whole of that agreement, and they take the place of anything said or understood before it.

Nothing offered on the platform is a sale of meat. Where the slaughter and cutting of an animal are added to an order, they are provided as services carried out on animals you already own, and they are dealt with separately in the sections that follow.

Where you buy as a consumer, the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 gives you rights that apply in addition to these terms, and nothing here is intended to reduce them. Where you buy in the course of a business whose turnover or asset value places it above the threshold set under that Act, the Act does not apply to your purchase, and these terms govern it in full.

2. Placing an order

You are free to browse the site without an account, and you place an order once you have chosen the animals you wish to buy. Beginning checkout reserves those animals for you while you complete your purchase, so that they are not sold to another buyer in the meantime. If the purchase is not completed, the reservation lapses in due course and the animals return to sale. Your order is confirmed, and the sale concluded, once we have received confirmation from our payment provider that your payment has succeeded.

Certain animals are offered on request rather than for immediate purchase. In those cases we confirm availability and a price for your approval before any payment is taken, and no sale arises until you have accepted that quotation and paid. A quotation is open for the period stated on it and lapses if it is not accepted within that period.

We describe every animal as accurately as we are able, and the weights, ages and condition scores shown are given in good faith as estimates rather than as guarantees. On the rare occasion that an animal is listed in error, at a price that is obviously wrong, or is no longer available when your order reaches us, we may decline the order and will refund you in full without delay. We will not use this to withdraw from a sale simply because the animal has become more valuable.

3. Prices, VAT and payment

All prices are quoted in South African Rand and are inclusive of value-added tax at the rate in force when the order is priced. The price you see is the price you pay: VAT is contained within it rather than added to it at checkout, and the VAT portion of your total is shown to you before you pay and again on your order. The rate applied to your order is fixed at the moment the order is priced, so a later change to the rate does not alter what you were charged.

The great majority of animals are sold at a fixed price per head, which is the price shown and the price you pay. A limited number are sold by live weight, at a stated rate per kilogram, in which event the final amount is determined objectively on a certified scale and settled in the manner described in our pricing and weigh-in policy. Whatever the basis, the full amount payable, including any delivery and any processing services you have chosen, is set out on your order before you are asked to pay, and no charge is ever added that you have not seen and agreed.

Payment is made to The Cattle Exchange through PayFast, our payment provider. Your card details are entered within PayFast’s own secure environment and are never transmitted to, seen by, or stored on our systems, so that the security of your payment rests with an established provider rather than with us. We treat an order as paid only once PayFast has confirmed the payment to us directly; a message on your screen is not that confirmation.

4. Delivery, collection and the passing of risk

Each listing indicates whether the animals may be collected, delivered, or both. Where you collect, we ask that you arrange transport suited to the animals and satisfy yourself as to their condition before loading them. Where you ask us to arrange delivery, we quote for livestock transport and confirm both the cost and the expected timing with you before anything is charged. The full arrangements appear in our delivery and collection policy.

Ownership of and risk in an animal pass to you when it is handed over, whether on collection or on delivery and acceptance. The position should an animal be injured or lost before that point is addressed in our mortality and risk transfer policy.

Timings we give for collection or delivery are estimates given in good faith. Livestock movement depends on weather, road conditions, the availability of suitable transport and the requirements of animal health authorities, and we would rather move an animal a day late than move it badly. Time is not of the essence of this agreement, but if we are materially late and you tell us that the delay defeats the purpose of your purchase, you may cancel and be refunded as set out in clause 5.

5. Animals you do not collect

Where you have chosen to collect, you must do so within seven days of our telling you that the animals are ready, or by any later date we agree with you in writing. A living animal has to be fed, watered and looked after every day it waits, and somebody has to pay for that.

If the animals have not been collected within that period, we will contact you to arrange a date. From the eighth day we may charge a reasonable daily keep fee, at the rate published on your order or otherwise notified to you before it begins to run, to cover feed, care and agistment. If the animals remain uncollected thirty days after we first told you they were ready, and we have given you written notice of at least fourteen days in that period, we may sell them at a fair market price, deduct the keep fee, the reasonable costs of sale and any amount you owe us, and pay you the balance.

We would much rather deliver your animals than sell them again. If you are struggling to arrange collection, tell us: in almost every case we can quote you for delivery instead.

6. Cancellation, refunds and your statutory rights

You may cancel a paid order at any time before the animals are handed over to you, and up to the point at which an animal is delivered to an abattoir for slaughter, which is the point beyond which the order cannot be undone. Where costs have already been committed on your behalf, such as a transporter who has been dispatched, those costs are deducted from your refund and are itemised for you. The full position, including what is refunded at each stage, is set out in our returns and cancellations policy, which forms part of these terms.

Because each animal is a specific and living thing, a change of mind after an animal has been handed over is not, by itself, a basis for return. Where an animal is materially not as we described it, and you tell us within the period set out in that policy, we will put the matter right.

Section 44 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002 gives a consumer a cooling-off right on certain goods bought electronically, and excludes from it goods that by reason of their nature are likely to deteriorate or expire rapidly. Live animals and any meat produced from them fall within that exclusion, and the cooling-off right accordingly does not apply to them. Your rights under the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 are unaffected by this and continue to apply.

7. Optional slaughter and cutting

After purchase, and entirely at your election, you may ask us to arrange the slaughter and cutting of the animals you have bought, for your own personal, cultural or religious use. Any meat that results belongs to you and is not for resale. In keeping with the Meat Safety Act 40 of 2000, slaughter is carried out only at a registered abattoir, and cutting only at a facility holding a Certificate of Acceptability. The confirmation you give when adding these services, and the way in which such orders are handled, are set out in the own-use and processing declaration.

The yield of a carcass cannot be known before slaughter. The weights and quantities we indicate for a processed animal are estimates based on the live weight and the customary yields for the species and condition, and the actual quantity of meat you receive will differ from them. A difference of that kind is not a defect and is not a ground for a claim.

8. Our responsibility to you, and its limits

We do not exclude or limit our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for our own fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, for any breach of the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 in respect of which liability may not lawfully be excluded, or for any other liability that may not lawfully be excluded or limited. Nothing in this clause affects those.

Subject to that, and to the extent the law permits, we are not liable to you for loss of profit, loss of income, loss of production, loss of an expected breeding or trading opportunity, loss of or damage to other animals in your herd or flock, or any other indirect or consequential loss, however it arises.

Subject to the first paragraph of this clause, our total liability arising out of or in connection with an order, whether in contract, in delict or otherwise, is limited to the amount you paid us for that order.

We are responsible for the condition of an animal as at handover, for the accuracy of what we told you about it, and for the checks described across these policies. We are not responsible for how an animal fares once it has passed into your care and management, for its performance, fertility, temperament or productivity, or for its suitability for a purpose you did not tell us about before you bought it.

9. Introducing an animal to your herd

Every animal we sell has been through the health checks described in our health and biosecurity policy, and we tell you what those checks did and did not cover. No health check can exclude every disease, and an animal that presents as healthy may be incubating something that no reasonable examination would have found.

Deciding whether and how to introduce a new animal to your existing herd or flock is a decision only you can make, on your own veterinary advice and with knowledge of your own operation. We strongly recommend that you quarantine every new arrival. Subject to clause 8, we are not liable for loss arising from the introduction of an animal to your herd where we have disclosed what we know and the animal was as described when it was handed over.

10. Events beyond our control

We are not liable for a failure or delay in performing our obligations caused by something beyond our reasonable control. That includes an outbreak of a controlled animal disease and any quarantine, standstill or movement restriction imposed in response to it under the Animal Diseases Act 35 of 1984; the suspension or withdrawal of an abattoir’s registration; severe weather, drought, fire or flood; civil unrest or the blockading of a route; the failure of the national electricity supply; and any act of government.

Where such an event occurs we will tell you as soon as we reasonably can, will keep you informed, and will do what we reasonably can to limit its effect on your order, including caring for your animals for as long as it lasts. If the event prevents us performing for more than thirty days, either of us may cancel the order, and we will refund you everything you have paid less any costs already properly incurred in performing it. Neither of us has any further claim against the other in that event.

11. If something goes wrong

Please tell us first. Almost everything is resolved quickly once we know about it. Write to us at customers@thecattlexchange.com with your order reference and what has happened, and we will acknowledge you within two business days and give you a substantive answer within ten.

If we cannot resolve the matter between us and you bought as a consumer, you are entitled to refer it to the Consumer Goods and Services Ombud at no cost to you, or to the National Consumer Commission. Nothing in these terms requires you to arbitrate a dispute or prevents you from approaching a court.

Where you bought in the course of a business to which the Consumer Protection Act does not apply, a dispute that we cannot resolve within thirty days of your written notice may be referred by either of us to arbitration under the rules of the Arbitration Foundation of Southern Africa, before a single arbitrator, seated in Gauteng and conducted in English.

12. General

This agreement is governed by the law of the Republic of South Africa. Both of us consent to the jurisdiction of the courts of South Africa, and where you bought as a consumer you may bring proceedings in the magistrate’s court for the district in which you live.

We may revise these terms from time to time. The version that applies to your order is the version in force when you placed it, identified by the version number and date at the head of this page, and a revision does not alter an order already placed. We may cede our rights or assign this agreement to a company within our group or to a purchaser of our business, provided that doing so does not reduce your rights.

If any provision of these terms is found to be unenforceable, the remainder continues in force. A failure or delay by either of us in enforcing a provision is not a waiver of it. Notices to you are sent to the email address on your order, and notices to us to the address in our company disclosure, and are treated as received on the next business day.

13. The commitment we make to you

The Cattle Exchange stands behind every animal it sells. We are accountable to you for your order from the moment your payment is confirmed until the animals are in your hands, and we hold ourselves to the accuracy of what we tell you about each animal and to the standards described across these policies. The limits set out above exist so that both of us know where we stand, not so that we can avoid putting something right. Where something is not as it should be, we would rather hear from you than not, and we will work with you to set it right.