• "How often do you ship?"
Typically, I ship orders within 2 weeks of them being placed. If you need your order sooner for a gift or something, feel free to reach out and I may be able to ship it out to you sooner. Around Christmas or when I have a high order quantity, I will ship orders more frequently.
If you haven't received an shipping email within 2 weeks of placing your order, feel free to reach out as well! Most likely I'm just busy with conventions or other work, but I'm happy to keep you updated and give you a better estimate of when your order will ship.
• "I think I gave you the wrong address on my order!"
No worries! That's an easy fix. Just shoot me an email with your order number and the correction, and I'll be able to directly edit your order info so it gets sent to the right place!
• "I'm from the UK, why do I need to email you before placing an order?"
The UK imposes a VAT (value added tax) on to international shipments and requires a national tax ID number from merchants in the United States. It is tedious and expensive to apply for one of these IDs. However, Etsy allows its merchants to use their tax ID to prove that the VAT has been paid, but BigCartel doesn't provide this service (yet?).
So if you're from the UK, kindly send me an email through the contact form letting me know your name and the contents of the order you want to place. With that, I'll create a unique listing on Etsy just for you with the same price and shipping cost that you would pay on BigCartel. You buy that listing, and I will ship it through Etsy so that I'm able to use their international tax ID number to verify that the VAT has already been paid! This ensures that your order will arrive without being held or returned to sender.
• "There's a problem with my order. Something was missing/broken."
I'm so sorry to hear that! I make every effort to pack each order correctly, but I work independently and sometimes I may miss something! And while I take care to pack every order carefully and safely, sometimes USPS isn't particularly gentle and things can arrive in bad condition. Please reach out to me through the contact form if your order doesn't look quite right. I may ask for a picture to understand exactly what went wrong, but in most cases I'm happy to send the missing part of your order or replace whatever was damaged during shipping.
• "Something I want is out of stock, will you be restocking it?"
If you see the listing on my shop and it's listed as "Sold Out", most likely it is going to be restocked in the future! I can't say exactly when, but if the listing is still there it's probably coming back. If the listing has been removed, then most likely the product is retired and I won't be restocking it.
• "My order was shipped, but it's taking a long time to arrive."
• "I think USPS lost my package."
• "My order was delivered to the wrong address."
I'm really sorry, but once I ship an order it's a little out of my hands! I only have access to the same tracking page that you do, I can't use my powers as the shipper to find your misplaced order. If the package is returned to me, I'll be able to look up your name and order number and send you an email to get it sent back on its way.
First, I would recommend contacting your local USPS office to see if they can help in any way. You might also just have to wait a long time, sometimes packages just show up! If it's clear that the package is totally lost and gone for good, feel free to reach out to me and at the very least I can send you a freebie if you decide to place another order as thanks for your patience and understanding.