Why some orders take 10 to 18 days, and why we say so

A shipping estimate is the easiest thing on a shop to lie about, and the lie is usually discovered on day twelve by somebody who is now angry. We would rather lose the order than win it on a number we cannot hit, so the slow items say they are slow on the product page, before the bag.

We hold no inventory, ever

Nothing is made or shipped until somebody has paid for it. That is a deliberate choice: it means we can carry a hundred objects nobody has had to warehouse, and it means we are never sitting on a pallet of something that did not sell.

The cost of that choice is time. An order is placed with the supplier after you buy, and the clock starts then rather than when a box leaves a shelf we already own.

Two different journeys

Some items ship from a warehouse in the United States. Those arrive in the normal few days you expect from anything else bought online.

The rest ship from overseas. Those take 10 to 18 business days door to door, which is roughly two to three and a half weeks including weekends. That is the honest window, not the optimistic one.

Why we do not just say 'ships in 3 to 5 days'

Because it would not be true for about half the catalogue, and the Federal Trade Commission takes a dim view of shipping claims a seller cannot meet. More to the point, an estimate exists so you can decide, and an estimate you cannot rely on is worse than no estimate at all.

If the window is going to be missed, we tell you and offer the choice of waiting or a refund. That is a legal requirement in the United States and it is also simply the right way to behave.

What to do if you are buying a gift

Work backwards from the date you need it and add a week of slack. For anything arriving before a fixed date, the safer answer is one of the US-warehouse items, and the safest of all is something with no size to get wrong.

We mark the Gothmas cut-off on the site as the date the slow items stop being realistic rather than the date we stop taking orders.

Mixed orders

If you buy one fast item and one slow item, they are two separate shipments from two separate places. They will not arrive together and you are not charged twice for postage.

The confirmation email lists which is which, so you are not left wondering whether half the order went missing.

What the tracking will and will not show you

An overseas parcel usually goes quiet for a stretch in the middle. It scans on collection, it scans again at an export hub, and then there can be a week with nothing while it is on a plane or in a consolidation centre. That silence is normal and is the single most common reason people email to say a parcel is lost when it is not.

The scan that matters is the first one inside your own country's postal network. Once that happens the remaining journey is ordinary domestic post and the estimates become reliable.

We send the tracking number when the supplier hands the parcel over, not when the order is placed, because a number issued earlier points at nothing and is worse than no number at all.

Customs and duties

For orders going to the United States, the values involved here are low and parcels of this kind normally clear without the recipient being asked for anything. We cannot promise that, because duty thresholds are set by governments and they change.

If a charge is ever raised it is levied on the recipient by the carrier, not by us, and it is not something we can pay on your behalf or predict in advance. If that ever happens to you, tell us, because it tells us something about a route we should know.

If the window is missed

In the United States, a seller who cannot ship within the advertised window has to tell the buyer and offer the choice between waiting and a refund. That is the Mail, Internet or Telephone Order Rule, and it is not optional.

We would do it anyway. If your order passes 18 business days without a delivery scan, email us and we will either chase it with a tracking reference or refund it. We will not ask you to wait another fortnight first.

Questions people actually ask

How long does delivery actually take?

Items shipping from a United States warehouse arrive in a few days. Items shipping from overseas take 10 to 18 business days, which is about two to three and a half weeks including weekends.

Why do some items take so much longer?

We hold no stock. Every item is ordered from its supplier after you buy, and some suppliers are in the United States while others are overseas.

Will a mixed order arrive together?

No. Items from different warehouses ship separately and arrive separately. You are not charged extra postage for the split.

Will I have to pay customs or duty?

For United States orders at these values it is unusual, but duty thresholds are set by governments and can change. Any charge is raised by the carrier on the recipient and is not something a seller can pay or predict.