Shipping Policy

We ship on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday every week.  Unless it’s a holiday or in rare cases due to someone being sick or on vacation.

Any item listed in our store is in stock and will ship on the next shipping day.  We currently don’t allow backordering of products.  You can sign up for our email newsletter at the bottom of this page and that will keep you updated on when out of stock items are back in stock and can be ordered.

Shipping Carrier

Currently we use USPS, UPS, or PirateShip for all shipments.  At this time we don’t allow you to select which carrier we use for your order. Part of the way we keep our prices affordable is by automating how shipping labels are generated from website orders and that limits how flexible we can be with shipping options at this time.

Shipping Costs

An exact shipping cost is listed during the checkout process.

Duties and Taxes on International Shipments

All duties and taxes for international shipments are the responsibility of the customer.  If the customer refuses to pay these extra charges, the shipping costs and any additional fees will be taken out of the cost of the order with any remaining funds being refunded to the customer.

International Shipping Carrier

If USPS is used for the shipment, once the parcel reaches its destination country, then the final delivery is handled by a local post service.  This is because First Class parcels, Ground, Priority Mail parcels, and some Priority Mail Express parcels are delivered by the Postal Service for that country.  USPS does contract with FedEx for delivery of guaranteed services such as GXG (Global Express Guaranteed), and with Priority Mail Express to countries where the service is guaranteed.  For these guaranteed services, FedEx flies the parcels to that country on their planes, they take the parcel through customs and they deliver it as well, which is how we can guarantee it.  I generally don’t offer these services in my store because they are expensive.

For the other classes of mail (First Class, Ground, Priority and to those non-guaranteed countries Priority Mail Express) the United States Parcel Service relies on commercial passenger and cargo flights, the package goes through customs on its own and it gets delivered by that country’s post office.  Here is a link to a list of the names of each country’s postal service.  Contacting your local post office is often the best way to find a missing package.

Excluded Countries

Brazil – Too many issues dealing with customs.

Germany – Too many packages have been rejected by customs.  The reasons they generally give are vague, but I’ve generated a fairly large list of potential issues.  I’m currently deciding if the cost to fix all these is worth it to me.  Until I decide to fix this, shipments to Germany are not allowed.

Italy – Too many packages have been lost by the local postal service (Poste Italiane).  I’m looking into why this is and if I can find a solution that will enable shipping to Italy in the future again.

Japan – Too many packages have been returned from Japan without explanation.

Peru – Customs has lost too many packages.

Retailers

If you would like to purchase our products from another store that might be closer to you check out this list.