Shipping FAQ
You can contact us with any questions.
Q: Why does it say there's no shipping rates available for my county in the check-out?
A: Rather than go into a giant explanation on this, the basic reason is... Shipping long items internationally is very complicated. There's some countries where Postal will work best, and some where it won't... and some where UPS will work best, and some where it won't. One issue is the max box length allowed through postal, which is different for each country. But here are the countries currently activated on the site, that have both Postal and UPS international shipping options available...
Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hong Kong SAR, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, San Marino, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Macao SAR, Czechia, Andorra, UK, Vatican City
Here's the list of countries where only UPS will be available...
Australia, Bahrain, Bulgaria, Caribbean Netherlands, Cook Islands, Estonia, Greenland, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Jersey, Lithuania, Malaysia, Monaco, Philippines, Réunion, Romania, Slovenia, South Korea, South Africa, Singapore, Taiwan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates
There's also numerous forwarding services in the US that you can ship your item to from us, and then they'll ship it overseas. For customers who prefer to use one of those, contact us first, because you'll want to know the weight and dimensions of the item after packaged. Dimensions make a BIG difference, because all of the carriers charge a lot more for boxes that exceed a certain max size/girth. Do NOT just do a basic quote. You want to make sure to put the dimensions in, because that will often give you a very different price. If you do use a forwarding service in the US, you can order straight through the site, because that will just be a normal US shipping destination.
There have also been people who have traveled to the US, and we've shipped items to them at their hotel, to take home with them later. But if you're thinking about doing this, check with the airline using the dimensions of the box, to see if they'll charge you anything, or even allow the box on the plane.
So bottom line, the best thing to do is contact us if you don't see your country listed, or have some other issue. We may very well be able to ship the item to you or help you find an affordable way to do it. But due to the complexities involved, there's no way to set everything up automatically on the site.
***Issues with UK & Northern Ireland***
As of 2021 the UK now expects sellers around the world to register with the UK VAT payment system, and then collect VAT taxes from their citizens on sales. We love our UK customers, but sorry... this is ridiculous. It's not the job of small businesses around the world to collect taxes for the UK government, from its citizens. This also sets a terrible precedent, because if they do this, eventually all the countries will probably try it, which would be a nightmare. They claim an order above $180 (US) will not be required to collect tax on our end. *Update 2022: Lately there's been some reports that they will still just collect taxes from the receiver on their end, if they aren't collected ahead of time. So for now we will continue shipping to the UK.
Q: Why is shipping so much more on some items?
A: All the postal and private carriers have something called 'dimensional weight'. When a box exceeds a certain maximum total in girth or the longest dimension, they will charge a higher rate. Sometimes that rate is almost double a standard rate. The dimensional cut-off point for this was actually lowered by most of the carriers recently, meaning that even more packages will fall into a 'dimensional charge' fee rate. Even if a package is just a couple pounds, they still want that higher rate for something that exceeds a certain max dimension. Is it really that much harder delivering a long box compared to a square one? Probably not, but it gives them a good excuse to charge more. Unfortunately we have to deal with it. As of 2022, USPS added a flat $15 surcharge for anything exceeding 30 inches in any dimension. Unfortunately, this brings an end to postal being the last affordable option. It is usually pointless to use postal priority for most items now, because it's often more expensive than UPS Ground, with worse service. You may choose to use postal if you live in a place where UPS would add a significant 'broker' fee on delivery, such as Canada... but there's really no other reason to choose it, unless the item is small.
Q: Why did the cart tell me my order is "too large" to calculate.
A: As previously mentioned, shipping long items is very complicated. The ability to automatically calculate the shipping correctly, decreases as the order gets larger. After a certain point, it's better if we just calculate the shipping manually, making sure that both parties get a fair deal. So if you do get this message in the cart, please email us with what you would like to order, and we will put together an invoice.