Shipping policy
All delivery times are estimated with the assumption that there will be no adverse weather conditions or other external factors affecting your parcel. In extreme circumstances (such as snow, ice, flood, earthquake, motorway closure) there may be a chance that your delivery could be delayed. These circumstances are out of our control and we are unfortunately unable to compensate for delayed delivery in these cases.
On a similar note, some shipping regions which are a long distance from delivery depots attract additional charges, which are impossible to automatically quote for. In most circumstances we will cover these on your behalf, but in rare cases when the surcharge is so high and / or the total order value quite small we may contact you to offer a different shipping service, or give you the option of paying the surcharge.
UK Mainland:
Parcels for delivery to UK mainland (locations on the UK mainland - not islands - and within the areas set by our couriers) leave us on one of three delivery services:
Royal Mail
Small items are usually delivered within 1-3 working days. Royal Mail claim that their 24 service delivers 92% of items the next working day, however please allow up to 14 days (two weeks). We are unable to 'chase' or claim for loss of your delivery before this time is up unfortunately. The maximum claim for loss or damage we can make is £20 and this process takes 8 weeks.
Please note that there may be postage surcharges for items sent to UK non-mainland addresses (such as islands or and remote delivery areas such as the highlands) - our website will inform you of this or we will contact you before dispatch if there will be any such charges. This is not applicable to international shipments.
Once items are posted, they are then in the hands of Royal Mail or our courier service, and as such, we are not directly responsible for any loss or damage to your item.
UK Non-Mainland (Islands and regions outside of standard delivery areas as specified by our couriers, such as the highlands):
Parcels for delivery to UK non-mainland may leave us on a few different delivery services:
Small items sent by Royal Mail 24 are usually delivered within 1-3 working days. Royal Mail claim that their 24 service delivers 92% of items the next working day, however please allow up to 14 days (two weeks). We are unable to 'chase' or claim for loss of your delivery before this time is up unfortunately. The maximum claim for loss or damage we can make is £20 and the process takes 8 weeks. If you are in a rush for your items or they are valuable, we recommend upgrading to one of our courier services.
Larger items over Royal Mail's size limit, or smaller items where Next Working Day delivery has been specified, are sent by an alternative courier service, usually Parcel Force. They will usually attempt delivery to your address within 2-3 working days after dispatch between 8am and 5pm. Please contact us if you would like to check. Saturday, Sunday and Bank Holidays are not classed as working days. If nobody is in when they try to deliver, they will leave a card. From here you can contact the courier company to re-arrange a delivery, or collect the parcel from their depot. They will attempt to re-deliver once the next working day, but you need to contact them after that if you wish to arrange another delivery date.
Islands locations have a very high surcharge, so it's usually best if we get a manual postage quote for you, but some regions are coded into the site.
Once items are posted, they are then in the hands of Royal Mail or our courier service, and as such, we are not directly responsible for any loss or damage to your item.
International Deliveries:
The delivery time varies greatly depending on the service you have selected and which country you are in, but please see below for a guide. The countries are just examples, as a general rule the delivery time is longer if you are further from the UK.
Please be aware that due to ongoing delays to delivery services worldwide the quoted delivery times below may be longer for FedEx and Royal Mail services. This is out of our control unfortunately. If you are concerned your order is taking longer than it should to arrive please get in touch and we'll see how we can help.
Royal Mail International: Europe: 5-10 days. USA & Canada: 7-12 days. Australia, Japan, Russia: 10-20 days. All other areas: 10-28 days
FedEx International Connect Plus: A new economy delivery service from FedEx! Western Europe: 3-5 days. Northern and Eastern Europe: 5-9 days. All other areas where applicable: 5-9 days approximately.
FedEx Economy: Western Europe: 2-4 days. Northern and Eastern Europe: 4-8 days. USA & Canada: 2-3 days. Australia, Japan, Russia: 4-8 days. All other areas: 5-9 days.
FedEx Priority: Western Europe: 1-4 days. Northern and Eastern Europe: 2-5 days. USA & Canada: 1-2 days. Australia, Japan, Russia: 3-7 days. All other areas: 4-8 days.
Standard insurance on all services is £50, so if your item is expensive we recommend purchasing additional insurance. If you choose FedEx you will be emailed a tracking link once the parcel is booked. Royal Mail International has tracking which can confirm delivery (but doesn't have any more detail) but this isn't emailed to you automatically. Please contact us if you would like the tracking information.
In rare cases it may take up to 8 weeks for your item to be delivered, but we are unable to compensate for slow delivery in any case.
Please note: Customers living outside the UK may have import fees and/or taxes added to their deliveries by you country's customs office when entering the destination country - this is why we remove UK sales tax of 20% for all orders that are sent to outside the UK.
We do not have any control over these fees and are not legally responsible for them. It is the responsibility of the customer to research into any fees that may be charged and pay these on arrival. You will be able to find information about this on your country's government website. In some cases they may take weeks or months to be billed for these, but usually after 2-3 weeks it is safe to assume that your order has not been subjected to any import fees.
We cannot ship to military addresses.
Packaging
We care about the environment at Submission Cycles. That's why, for most products, we will re-use packaging that we receive our goods in, to safely pack your orders. This is not only better for the environment, ensuring packaging gets a second use, it also saves on the cost of us buying large quantities of new packaging which reflects in the prices we charge for our products and services, saving you money!
This does mean that sometimes, products may come in packaging not branded to match the product or with information not relevant to that product on the packaging. We ask that you please check your orders thoroughly by removing all products from their packaging to make sure what you have received exactly matches the paper invoice supplied before contacting us.
We will also sometimes combine parts into larger packaging of other products which prevents damage in transit and can be more efficient allowing us to fit more into a smaller space. Please make sure to check all boxes and packing material for small parts.
Important note for all delivery services:
Under no circumstances can Submission Cycles be held responsible for non-delivery of items if the customer has provided an incorrect address. Postal insurance does not cover this and we are not able to re-dispatch orders where this problem has occurred without payment being taken for the order again. In this case, we will of course refund you if the first parcel dispatched is returned to us. If the incorrectly-addressed order is returned to us, then it's no problem to re-send or refund you for it.