Terms of use

Who we are

Sternmarkt is operated by Shane Robert Herbert (ABN 14 645 684 276), trading as Sternmarkt, in New South Wales, Australia. The same business operates mbsmallparts.com.

You can reach us through the contact form at sternmarkt.com/contact, or at hello@sternmarkt.com.

What Sternmarkt is, and what it isn't

Sternmarkt is a place to list and find used parts for classic Mercedes-Benz cars. We check every listing before it goes live, and we help identify parts where we can.

We are not the seller. When you buy a part, your contract is with the seller, not with us. We don't hold the part, we don't ship it, and no money for a part passes through Sternmarkt — the buyer and seller arrange payment and delivery between themselves. The only money we take is what a seller pays us to list.

Checking a listing means we look at it for accuracy, completeness and obvious problems before publishing it. It does not mean we have inspected the part, verified the seller's claims about its condition or history, or guaranteed that it will fit your car. Fitment information on the site is our best understanding and is often incomplete. Check for yourself before you buy.

Listings are written by third parties. Nothing on a listing page is a statement by us about the part.

Your account

You need an account to sell, to message anyone, or to post a request for a part. Keep your sign-in email secure; anything done through your account is treated as done by you.

Give us accurate details. Sellers must give a real name or business name and a real location. A business seller must be a real registered business, and we verify that by hand before a business account can list.

To list a part or post a parts-wanted request, you need a mobile number that we've checked by text message. One number can be used on one account, and we never show it to other people.

One person, one account. If we close an account, don't open another to get around it.

You must be old enough to enter a contract where you live.

Selling

Your listing must be accurate. Describe the part honestly, including its faults. Use your own photos of the actual part you are selling. Set a condition that matches what a buyer will receive. If you are not certain a part fits a particular car, say so rather than guessing.

You must have the right to sell the part. Don't list stolen parts, counterfeit or falsely branded parts, parts you don't have, or anything you are not allowed to sell where you are.

Don't put contact details in a listing or in a message, and don't try to move a sale off Sternmarkt to avoid fees. We check messages for this.

We may ask you to change a listing, refuse it, or take it down. We'll tell you why when we do, unless telling you would help someone get around our checks.

If you sell as a business, Australian Consumer Law gives your buyers rights that you cannot exclude, and other countries have their own equivalents. Meeting those obligations is yours, not ours. Private sellers have fewer obligations but still must not mislead anyone.

Buying

Your contract is with the seller. Read the listing, ask questions through the site before you commit, and agree payment and postage with the seller directly.

If something goes wrong with a purchase, take it up with the seller first. Tell us as well — use “Report a problem” — because we act on patterns, and a seller who keeps letting people down loses their account. But we cannot refund you for a purchase we were never part of, and we don't arbitrate disputes about parts.

What listing costs

Buyers pay nothing.

Private sellers pay nothing to list. Each listing runs for 90 days and can be renewed free in its last 14 days, as many times as you like. There is a limit on how many listings a private seller can have live at once; the current limit is shown on the Pricing page.

Business sellers list free until 31 October 2026. Paid business plans are being finalised and will be published on the pricing page before then; listings made during the free period are not charged, and no fee will apply to a listing without telling you first. We will update these terms when the plans are published.

Prices are in Australian dollars. Payments are handled by Stripe; we never see or store your card number. We are not currently registered for GST, so no GST is charged on these prices. If that changes we will update these terms and say so before it applies to you.

We may give an account free listing at our discretion — founding sellers, clubs and similar. We'll tell you by email when that starts and before it ends.

We may change these prices. Existing subscriptions keep their price until they end, and we'll say so on the site and by email before any change applies to you.

Refunds

A listing fee buys the listing, not a sale. We don't refund it because a part didn't sell.

We do refund a listing fee if we take a listing down for a reason that is ours rather than yours, or if you are charged twice for the same listing. If we remove a listing because it broke these terms, the fee is not refunded.

Subscription payments already taken are not refunded when you cancel; the subscription simply runs out at the end of the period you paid for.

This sits alongside the rights the Australian Consumer Law gives you, which we cannot exclude.

Messages

Buyers and sellers talk through Sternmarkt rather than by email or phone. This keeps people's contact details private and gives us something to look at when a deal goes wrong.

We can read messages. We look at them when a problem is reported, when our checks flag something, and to enforce these terms. We don't read them for anything else. This is set out in the privacy policy.

Don't use messages to harass anyone, to advertise something else, or to move a sale off the site.

Photos and text you give us

What you write and photograph stays yours. By posting it, you give us permission to show it on Sternmarkt and to use it to promote Sternmarkt.

Separately, when you list a part you can choose to let us keep your photos in our parts reference so they help identify the same part in future. That is optional, it is asked for separately, and you can ask us to remove them.

If you agree, your photos stay on the part's page after your listing ends, without your name on them. You can stop it at any time from the listing's edit page, and they are taken off the part's page straight away.

Don't post anything you don't have the rights to — including photos taken from other listings, catalogues or manuals.

Suspending and closing accounts

We can pause a listing, suspend selling, or close an account if these terms are broken, if someone is repeatedly unresponsive or misleading, or if we have good reason to think an account is being used dishonestly.

We'll tell you what happened and why. If you think we got it wrong, reply and say so — we would rather fix a mistake than defend it.

You can ask us to close your account at any time: email hello@sternmarkt.com or use the contact form at sternmarkt.com/contact. Messages attached to completed sales are kept, because ratings depend on them; the privacy policy says for how long.

What we are responsible for

We are responsible for our own conduct: running the site honestly, describing what we do accurately, and handling your information as the privacy policy says.

We are not responsible for the parts themselves, for what sellers or buyers say or do, or for a deal that goes wrong between them. We don't promise the site will always be available or free of errors.

Nothing here excludes rights you have under the Australian Consumer Law or any other law that cannot be excluded. Where the law allows us to limit what we owe you, our liability for anything connected with Sternmarkt is limited to the fees you paid us in the twelve months before the problem arose.

Privacy

How we handle your information is in the privacy policy at sternmarkt.com/privacy, which forms part of these terms.

Changes

We may change these terms. If a change matters to you — prices, what you're responsible for, how we use your information — we'll tell you by email before it applies. Carrying on using Sternmarkt after that means you accept the change.

Which law applies

These terms are governed by the law of New South Wales, Australia, and the courts there deal with any dispute. If you deal with us as a consumer somewhere else, this doesn't take away rights your own country gives you.

Last updated: 3 October 2026.