Shipping Questions
Time to Ship
Production time is the time from which you place your order to the moment when we tender your package to a courier. This "production time" is displayed on every product page. Added to production time is shipping time, the time the courier requires from package pick up to delivery to your address. The sum of production time and shipping time is the total time from order placement to arrival at the final destination. This time period is available by clicking on the "arrival time" link on every product page.
Production time is always 72 hours or less. Shipping time ranges from 2-6 days for the Continental US. At the time of shipment, we will notify you by email of the shipment, the date, the shipping method, the tracking number, and an url where you can logon and track your order on a daily basis if you so desire.
Standard shipping is USPS First Class mail. At the time of checkout, we present additional shipping methods which will shorten the length of the shipping time after we tender the package to the courier. For USPS Priority Mail, the post office estimates 3 days shipping time, but does not guarantee an actual delivery date. FedEx, where available, is a guaranteed arrive-by service.
Re: FedEx & Their Money Back Guarantee
ONLY the FedEx option offers a money back guarantee, and then, only when they say so. The money back guarantee is not a guarantee we extend. FedEx extends the guarantee. There are circumstances under which they will withdraw their guarantee which include but are not limited to: acts of God, weather, mechanical failure at the airport or other similar event. In sum: we do not guarantee FedEx. FedEx guarantees FedEx, and sometimes withdraws their guarantee without notice to you or us. We cannot and do not control or endorse FedEx, their guarantee, or their refund process. In our experience, FedEx does a remarkable job at getting packages delivered on time, and 99.9% of the time the expense is well worth it if time-definite delivery is extremely important to you.
Shipping Costs
Our shipping charges are based on the US Postal Method of determining the rate which is a calculation of: package weight, package dimension, and distance to destination. Their rate schedule is built into our website to do these calculations automatically. For an exact quote, enter your order and the shipping screen will show you the exact amount including lowest cost and/or fastest service based on the specific ornaments you entered, (weight and packed dimensions) and your zip code, (distance to destination). As an estimate, most single ornament shipments cost around $8.65 to ship, plus or minus a few dollars. Additional glass ornaments are rather inexpensive to ship, usually adding only $3-4 dollars each, depending upon how much extra the courier charges for the increased size of the box.
Shipping Methods & Destinations
Shipments within the USA
In the US, we offer First Class Mail, Priority Mail, and FedEx Home Delivery where available.
Shipments To Canada
We ship to Canada regularly without difficulty. However, please note that Canadian Customs can and does hold packages for inspection. Last year for reasons unknown to us, Canadian Customs withheld approximately 35% of our shipments that shipped between December 6th - 20th. Those withheld took 3-4 weeks to be delivered. Naturally, this extraordinary delay caused great inconvenience to many of our Canadian customers. It also put us in a terrible position where our customers just "had to wait" on Canadian Customs. Further, most shipments to Canada were not updated by the USPS on their website. They showed "electronically received" and then were delivered without a single update during the transit time. Our competitors also shared with us this same experience. Thus, if shipping to Canada after December 6th, please note there may very well be a 40% chance of your shipment arriving after Christmas. We sincerely apologize that we simply have no control over what Canadian Customs does and hence over package delivery delays into Canada.
Shipments Outside North America
We commonly ship to Australia, the UK and surrounding countries, Continental Europe, and Hong Kong. Choose your foreign destination from the drop-down list
provided when you place your order. If you're shipping to England and you choose USA, we will contact you to correct your destination and shipping charge. Lastly, all foreign shipments need to be
paid with Paypal, as most foreign-bank-based credit cards will not provide address-verification service, causing a valid credit card to decline.
Order Tracking
At the time of shipment, we will send you an email notifying you of the date of shipment, method, and tracking number. We will also provide to you an url where you can track your package's progress to its destination on a daily basis.
