Postage and Packing + Payment Information for Overseas Buyers
Paying. If you are one of those few who won't use Paypal, be aware that when paying by bank transfer you need to instruct your bank to pay our bank's charges. An international money order payable at any post office is a better bet. We may be miles from any Western Union office and you must pay our travel costs and time there and back if you insist on paying through them. Better still, sign up to Paypal!
Customs. It is the buyer's responsibility to make sure that any purchase will be allowed into the buyer's home country. Some country's customs services are being ultra tough after 9/11. General advice we have received is that the recipient's telephone number on the outside of a package is a good idea, and is a requirement in some countries, such as Canada. Make sure you know what is needed for your package to get past your Customs service and make sure that you tell us.
Packaging. We purchase materials specially, when we cannot recycle, to provide the best protection for your purchases whilst in transit. We pride ourselves on the quality of our packing (see feedback).
We estimate final packaged weight when listing and sometimes over estimate. When that happens to any significant degree, we refund the excess. Our feedback shows this.
Shipping Costs. We have found that overseas shipping can be fraught with unexpected complications and some buyers are easily upset when things go wrong. If we make a mistake in our listings with our shipping prices we will always explain in full and offer the buyer the option of cancelling the deal all together. The most common error we have made is not being aware of size limits (as opposed to weight bands) for a particular country. For example, a small 1 Kg package to the USA can cost as little as £6.50 to send but if one of its dimensions is over 60 cm that cost can jump to £30 or more. Most packages weighing over 2Kg are priced by volumetric weight (length x height x width divided by 6000). You can see how complicated this is, so please bear with us if we get it wrong initially.
Handling and Packaging Charge. We have calculated average costs of packaging over the months and our P&P charges include an appropriate amount towards this packaging.
Handling includes making the extra effort to ensure that we can prove posting of every item, should any buyer ever need to make a claim.
For many purchases, the handling and packaging charge is £1, although large amounts of china and higher value items will attract a proportionately higher charge. If economy of shipping is more important to you, please ask for ways to reduce package weight and thus shipping costs, but note that this will be at your own risk.
Insurance. We recognise that it is our obligation to ensure all buyers receive their purchases, despite the risk of loss or damage by third party carriers. As a rule, therefore, we only mail by methods that include appropriate insurance. This may mean higher postage rates for items over 2Kg and £36. Please bear with us if this makes our P&P rates look slightly higher than those of some ebayers, who do not worry about such things.
We usually list and invoice a postal method that gives suitable insurance and meets our obligations under Paypal's protection schemes. Cheaper, less secure, methods of postage are sometimes available even if not listed, just ask!
If you are unlucky enough to have your parcel damaged or lost en route, we will claim from insurance and refund accordingly. Whether that refund includes the postage will depend on the carrier's policy for the level of service you elected to pay for. Please check with the post office or other carrier. |
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