Wild As The Wind use Royal Mail second class post for all of our deliveries.
Royal Mail second class post comes with a tracking number and also keeps the cost of deliveries as low as possible for you.
Plus, with no need to sign for your parcel, it can be delivered to a safe place, or to a neighbour, if you are out when it arrives. (You will need to specify where your safe place is, on the order checkout page… please see the Parcel Delivery section below.)
Cost Of Delivery
The current cost of Royal Mail second class post is £3.75.
Wild As The Wind do not charge for packaging your orders. We also don’t charge for the materials used in the packing of your orders.
We simply charge you what the Royal Mail charge us for delivery.
However,Wild As The Wind offer free delivery for orders that exceed £75.00 in value.
Please note, if your order exceeds 2Kg in weight, we may split your order into two parcels.
Packaging Materials
Wild As The Wind use jiffy bags to package your orders in most cases. Sometimes larger orders require packaging in a box, and we will use repurposed boxes for this, wherever possible.
Whenever we can, we use plastic-free jiffy bags. However, very sadly, this isn’t always possible. Please reuse them yourselves rather than recycling.
Wild As The Wind also use repurposed ‘void fill’ and other materials so that we may pack your orders as safely as possible. As we exclusively use amber glass bottles for all of our products, parcels need to be packaged incredibly well to avoid damage in transit.
All efforts are made to repurpose as much of the packaging material that comes our way as possible. We hope that you also reuse these materials again wherever you can.
The new materials that we buy in especially for packaging orders include things like tissue paper. But we buy unbleached, environmentally sound, tissue paper, and not the cheap, bleached variety.
Order Processing
Best endeavours are made to process and post orders within two to three working days from the date they are received. However, as Wild As The Wind products are either hand-made or bottled by hand, please allow 10 working days for your parcel to arrive, under normal circumstances, before considering contacting Wild As The Wind to report a missing parcel.
In addition, under certain circumstances, order processing times will be longer…
- Online sales
- Christmas shopping period
- In the run-up to Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day etc
- Adverse weather / flooding
Please also note, as many of the Wild As The Wind products are hand-blended, bottled and labelled by hand, this is very time consuming. Products are only made in small batches, and your order may need making as well as packaging and posting.
For this reason, please allow up to five working days for the fulfilment of your order, under all circumstances, and a further five days for delivery – ten days in total.
Two Orders In The Pipeline
It’s surprising how many people forget to order all of the items they wish to purchase at the same time. This leads to Wild As The Wind processing two orders from the same person within a single week.
We do our best to combine these orders, but regretably we cannot refund any additional postage paid.
Please read Wild As The Wind Buying Options to understand the situation fully, and to see the reasons why a refund isn’t feasible.
Parcel Delivery
Wild As The Wind is all about helping Wild As The Wind customers as much as is feasibly possible. But, we can only do that if we know how best to serve you.
This is especially true where your online orders are concerned. So, please help us to help you, by ensuring that you provide us with all of the delivery information required to avoid any potential issues…
More often than not, Wild As The Wind parcels are too large to fit through the average letterbox. It is, therefore, extremely important for you to specify where you would like your parcel to be left by your postal delivery person if you are likely to be out, or unavailable, when they make their delivery.
Your postal delivery person does not know if you have a good relationship with your neighbours. They also don’t know what is in your parcel, and so, they may not choose the best option for delivering your parcel if you are out.
Wild As The Wind also don’t know your circumstances. We post things in good faith, trusting the Royal Mail, as a third party, to do the best job possible, based on the information provided.
Only you know your individual set of circumstances, and so it is for you to let us know of any potential issues relating to the delivery of your parcel… These include:
- Your address is hard to find (please provide basic directions)
- You are likely to be out when the delivery is made (please provide advice as to where to leave your parcel for safe keeping)
- You are aware that parcel theft is an issue in your area (organised thieves have been targeting certain areas, particularly before Christmas, and have been following Royal Mail and Courier delivery vans, so they can steal high value parcels left on doorsteps and in porches etc…)
You also need to supply advice as to where to leave your parcel for safe keeping for the following reasons:
- Your letterbox is too small for the parcel to be delivered directly into your home
- You have a shared hallway
- There are many outbuildings and other places where a parcel could be feasibly left
- There is nowhere for a parcel to be safely left if you are not in
- Any other issue that would complicate the delivery of your parcel
Wild As The Wind cannot be held responsible for the theft, damage or loss of your parcel, after it has been delivered to you, if you have failed to provide specific delivery instructions in the event of you being out, or otherwise unavailable for consultation, when your postal delivery person attempts to deliver your parcel.
Parcel Delivery Delays
There are a number of reasons why your parcel may not be dispatched within the usual time frame. The two main reasons for this are adverse weather conditions, and state holidays and annual holidays.
After reading this document in full, please consult The Shipping Delays section of the General FAQs page before contacting Wild As The Wind, and act in accordance with the advice provided.
As of publication the following articles are available in the Shipping Delays section of the General FAQs page:
Delivery Services Adversely Affected 2022 & Delivery Services Adversely Affected 2022 Addendum
Delivery Services Adversely Affected 2023
Delivery Services Adversely Affected 2024
Adverse Weather Conditions
Unprecedented weather conditions in the UK have caused several spates of serious delays in the posting and delivery of orders.
Intentional Delays In Posting
In some instances order delays are intentional, for safety reasons.
Carrier oils and essential oils will spoil when they are exposed to sustained high heat levels. This is especially true if these oils are being transited in hot vehicles.
Consequently, when temperatures rise to potentially harmful levels, Wild As The Wind will hold on to your items until it is safe to send them to you.
In these instances, please allow an additional amount of time to elapse before contacting Wild As The Wind about a missing parcel. In addition to the usual 10 days, please add the amount of days the temperatures have exceeded 23° Celsius.
Thank you. x
State & Annual Holidays
State and annual holidays may delay the posting of your order. Thankfully, holidays are easily anticipated, and all efforts are made to avoid disruptions to usual service levels. However, the fulfilment of online orders is a complex process, and it isn’t always possible to find adequate cover during holiday periods.
If it isn’t possible to find temporary staff with an adequate skill set to provide cover during holiday periods, Wild As The Wind will notify everyone on the Wild As The Wind mailing list that there will be a temporary disruption to the processing of orders.
Please subscribe to the Wild As The Wind mailing list, using the opt-in pop-up box that appears after a 30 second period of entering this Wild As The Wind Shop Website, to ensure that you are notified of future disruptions, via email.
Providing Additional Delivery Information
There is a specific field on the checkout page for you to provide additional information. This does not specifically state that the additional information should relate to the delivery of your parcel, although it does give the example of “special notes for delivery” within the field where you can type your instructions.
This field is not exclusive to additional delivery information because you may want to use it to provide other additional information relating to your order, for example; that it’s for a friend, or that you will be on holiday and wish to delay delivery etc.
This is an image of what to look out for on your checkout page when placing an order if you need to supply additional information:
Delivery Timescales
Royal Mail second class post can take within one to five days to be delivered. So, under normal circumstances, please allow 10 working days for your parcel to arrive.
However, periods of high volume, widespread sickness may slow things down even further at the Royal Mail
Christmas is notoriously problematical in terms of slower delivery times. This is due to high volumes of mail received by the Royal Mail.
At Christmas, the need to take on temporary staff often compounds any inherent problems.
Temporary staff tend to be less efficient than regular staff. Plus, temporary or new postal delivery personnel will not intimately know your route. When parcels go missing whilst out for delivery, it’s usually because new staff have delivered your parcel to a neighbour!
However, there have been added problems in recent years. Delays to deliveries have occurred for all of the following reasons:
- Lockdowns :: Postal staff have had to self-isolate at the first sign of symptoms to comply with lockdown regulations, etc.
- There has been a huge increase in people buying online in the last few years, which has put delivery systems under immense pressure.
- Staffing levels at the Royal Mail have been regularly adversely affected by widespread illness, leading to delays in deliveries. There are also other reasons why staffing levels at the Post Office have been inconsistent. If interested to understand the more complex issues affecting posta services in the UK, please vist the Post Office Counters and Royal Mail websites. You can also search recent news headlines in Google.
If you think there is a problem with your order, it is important that you read the Missing Parcel FAQ before contacting us.
When Should I Start Considering Taking Action About A Missing Parcel?
Under normal circumstances, please allow 10 working days for your parcel to arrive before considering contacting Wild As The Wind to report a missing parcel.
However, if there are exceptional circumstances affecting prompt deliveries, please hold-fire for a little longer.
Plus, it’s really important for you to read the Missing Parcel FAQ and follow the advice provided within this document before contacting Wild As The Wind.
Returns
Wild As The Wind are unable to resell products which are returned to us, even if they are unopened and seemingly undamaged. This is because, even if the products remain unopened, with the tamper evident seal still intact, it is still impossible to determine whether the products have been exposed to conditions which will spoil the contents.
On this basis, Wild As The Wind cannot resell these items.
This, unfortunately, means that if you decide to change your order after it has been placed, or you make a mistake with your order, these errors cannot be remedied after the order is fulfilled and dispatched.
For this reason, we do not accept returns unless the return is due to the exceptional circumstances listed below.
Please refrain from emailing Wild As The Wind unless it is to advise that exceptional circumstances apply to you. Time is precious.
Exceptional Circumstances
Under exceptional circumstances, it is possible to return Wild As The Wind products.
However, please be aware of the following:
- Only orders which have been damaged in transit, whilst in the hands of the Royal Mail, are acceptable for return.
- If your order has been damaged in transit, or if a product has been spoiled for any reason, due to the handling of it whilst in transit, you will need to return the goods to Wild As The Wind before a refund will be issued. We may also ask you to supply photographs of your damaged products and packaging via email prior to them being returned to us. (These images may be used as proof of damage by Wild As The Wind, in order to secure a refund from the Royal Mail.)
- If a product has been spoiled as a consequence of your actions, or non-action, no refund will be given. You are responsible for storing and using your products correctly, in accordance with the information provided on this website. Specific instructions can be found on the individual product pages, and more general, but important advice, can be found here: How To Use Essential Oils. An example of ‘non-action’ on your part would be, the failure to provide suitable delivery instructions so that your order will be kept safe, and in perfect condition, after delivery.
- The cost of returning products to Wild As The Wind is the responsibility of the sender, unless the order has been damaged in transit.
Please read Conditions Of Sales for more information about making a return.
