(Please select the lowest amount in the option for shipping charges when checking out in our store. We must charge for shipping, so no matter what that shipping charge will be used towards your cost of actual shipping even if it is lower than expected for that item.)
Furniture is unable to ship to the following locations: Alaska, Hawaii, or Puerto Rico
Transit times:
- Instant: This falls into the digital download area. Once you purchase a digital item it will delivered once you pay for the download. This item will not be sent to you in the mail, it will be a instant download to your device.
- 2-5 Business Days: Items in the USA, created in the United States, and/or at our location are in this category. These are being shipped by USPS, FedEx, UPS, depending on the vendors shipping policies. These could also be items that are being handmade, at our location, personalized, and could be sent with a different type of shipping method, not necessarily always an international product.
- 5-10 Business Days: These are being shipped by USPS, FedEx, UPS, or USPS International, depending on the vendors shipping policies, and/or the item could be out of stock in the USA, and/or could be needing to be reproduced. These could also be items that are being handmade, personalized and could be sent with a different type of shipping method, not necessarily always an international product. This could be a vendor that will not send directly to a customer, therefore the item must be shipped to us first, then sent to you.
- 8-12 Business Days: This could be any country including the United States, France, or any country to which processing times, custom made, or customs could have an influence on shipping times. These could be shipped using any service that would have a semi-fast transit time. These are being shipped by USPS, FedEx, UPS, USPS International, or DSL depending on the vendors shipping policies. These could be items that are being handmade, personalized and could be sent with a different type of shipping method, not necessarily always an international product. This could be a vendor that will not send directly to a customer, therefore the item must be shipped to us first, then sent to you.
- 10-15 Business Days & 15 Business Days: This could be a vendor that ships to us first, then we inspect the item and then send the item to you. These are being shipped by USPS, FedEx, UPS, DSL, or USPS International, depending on the vendors shipping policies. These could be items that are being handmade, personalized and could be sent with a different type of shipping method, not necessarily always an international product. This could be a vendor that will not send directly to a customer, therefore the item must be shipped to us first, then sent to you.
- International Shipping transit time: 19 to 24 business days, then an additional 2 to 5 business days due to processing time. (We normally do not add international products to our store, this is just in case we decide to add certain items.) We add this message to each of our international products descriptions so you are informed before you purchase a product that will be shipped internationally and shipped by US International services. You will be advised, just in case you did not read the description, before we start to process the order that it is an international item. You will be able to choose whether to continue with the order or cancel the order. You will have 24 hours to contact us, if you do not contact us within 24 hours of our message, we will process the order.
Please note that other countries do not have the same requirements as the USA, so some products could be not safe for small children, even though they could be classified for smaller children in their country. Please take care in reading or translating the descriptions if they are in another language. We are not responsible for any items that could not be within range of USA requirements. However, we are as careful as we can be when adding these items to our store.
Processing times:
Instant: Digital downloads fall into this category. Unless it is a personalized file that you asked us to create, then the processing time will be longer.
3-5 Business days for most items, if there would be an occurrence of a longer processing time we will notify you. Handmade and personalized products will have a longer processing time. If the item is from a factory or a vendor; the vendor will create a shipping label before the item is ready to ship. That means that it could say that "the shipping label was created, but was not picked up by the carrier as of yet." It could stay in that state of limbo for up to 5 full business days. Please allow for the actual processing time for these vendors. Some of the items are sent to us first then to you, therefore creating longer processing times.
Holidays:
USA Holidays: Major holidays to which the postal service and vendors shut down will affect transit and processing times. Weekends will also affect shipping and processing times.
International holidays: Major international holidays will affect international shipping. This will fall into the last shipping category. This will not affect our other shipping areas. Some international holidays can last up to a month or more. This is usually around the beginning of January to the beginning of February. Our suggestion is not to purchase overseas products within this time range.
Returns:
Please do not send an item back to the address on your package. Send the item back to us at:
Bay Gift Shop, P.O. Box 65, Meyersdale, PA 15552-0065.
Contacting us:
You can reach us at bgshopinfo@baygiftshop.com, our main page in the chat section, or text message us at 814.485.1110. We prefer a text message so we can message you back as soon as we see it, we can’t always answer a phone call. This is our second line, so please allow at least 8-12 hours before we see this text message on days that we are not at our home location. When contacting us please tell us that you are a customer of Bay Gift Shop, then your order number, then your question. (There are just too many spam texts and calls this day and age.) PLEASE TEXT US BEFORE CALLING US. We always see text messages, phone calls without voice mails are ignored due to countless spam calls.
Refunds & Returns:
At times, items can be sold out extremely fast. If this happens, no worries, we will contact you and refund you fully for your purchase.
Rarely, items could be defective, please contact us immediately if this occurs. We will ask for the item back, unless it was something of little value, read below:
* (Example: something that was bought for under $5. we do not accept intimate personal items back. We do require a photo of the defect so we can document the issue. It is not that we don't believe you. If we used a vendor for the product they will need to document the problem too.)
We will refund you fully once the item is returned to us. We care about you and we care about the products we are selling you.
Some items are not refunded, please note in our policies. (Example: Digital downloads)
PayPal Orders: (Important)
* (Orders that we are unsure of being Legitimate) PayPal orders could take up to 6 days to process the payment, depending on our in-depth scan to ensure that the order is not fraudulent. If there is any accusation that the order could the least bit fraudulent the order will pertain to this:
- Steps: Customer places an order using PayPal. The money is received, we then complete an instant transaction to our business checking account from PayPal. We then must transfer the money to our regular platform business account that we use for our online store, which will take up to six days to transfer. We will then order your product or send the item directly from our location to your location. If an item is from a vendor, the vendor will have a processing time on top of our processing time which is typically 3 to 5 business days. Then the actual transit time could be 5 to 10 business days depending on what type of product it is and/or if the vendor is creating that product at will.
* PayPal orders that are completely legitimate, and there are no signs of fraudulent behavior will be processed entirely differently. That means passing the scan that we have on our site and the address is legitimate, the email and phone number is legitimate. If the order passes all of our tests it will pertain to this:
- PayPal instant pay: If a customer uses instant pay, meaning there is no waiting period for the payment. We can instantly transfer the money over to our account that we use on our platform. Even though it will take us a few days to receive the money, we will cover the costs and order the product ahead of time to ensure that your items are sent to you in a timely manner.
- PayPal (Regular Transaction): If a customer pays normally and does not use instant pay. The money will be sent to us within 3 to 5 business days. Once we receive the money, we will start the transfer to our account. But we will not wait for the amount to be transferred fully, we will order the product ahead of time to ensure that your item will be processed in a timely manner.
* Large purchases using a PayPal account: If a customer uses PayPal to purchase many items, our fast purchase cannot be used. Even though the order would pass all our scans we cannot cover large purchases ahead of time. It would be too much of a risk for our company to take. The process would take the normal amount of time for all the transfers to take place.
* OUR SHIPPING:
The reason our items are normal shipping and processing.
➡️ (Please use the cheapest shipping option in our cart. We do not have control over how fast some of our items are shipped, processed, and the transit times. We only have control over our inventory at our location. Meaning we use vendors and wholesale companies for most of our supply.)
(If the item is sent to us first, like some our vendors require, we typically try to send a little free gift along with your purchase, due to the processing time takes a tad bit longer, plus we just like to do the little extras. If it is sent directly from a vendor the free gift is not sent but a discount code towards your next purchase, since we do not even touch the item and not being able to add an item to the package.)
We are not huge like Amazon (We have no affiliation to Amazon, this is just a related note.) we cannot send your items extremely fast like Amazon does, they have their own delivery service. We know how much you would like to have your items fast, the reason you can receive items so fast from that company is they have their own employees that actually transport their items for them. Most of us are so used to receiving products so fast that we forget how long the actual process takes.
If you cannot wait the normal amount of time for processing and actual USPS transit times, please do not purchase the item. Once the item starts to process and is shipped with tracking we cannot cancel the item. We can do a return, but we cannot stop the process once it starts. However, if it is for this reason (not a normal return) the item must be returned to us first before the refund would take place. We have to be able to resell the item, please do not open the package and place a return label on the package and send the item back to our return address. (Bay Gift Shop, P.O. Box 65, Meyersdale, PA 15552) We will charge a restocking fee ($2.00), and the shipping will not be refunded (Please use the cheapest shipping method, with tracking).
This is different than a normal return; normal returns are improper size, defect in the item, and so on. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause. This only takes effect if the return is due to transit times, not for normal returns. Our normal returns are fully refunded including shipping costs.
Why do we use vendors instead of stocking at our own location?
Instead of saying we, I am going to refer to myself as I. I am the single owner of Bay Gift Shop, and it is my hobby. I do not own a huge building, but my dream is to have my own actual building one day. I started this when there was a major crossroad in my life and this little store gave me some value to my life. Besides working a full-time job, this made me feel that possibly one day my dream would come true.
Now back to why I don't store items at my location any longer. I went into this full force, buying wholesale products up like crazy and using part of my home for storage to keep the items safe and new. I refused to put anything into storage that did not have heat, and I wanted to send my items within 1 business day. I wanted to be different, I wanted to care about what I was selling to my customers. So, my house started to fill up, box after box, and I kept up with stock. But...all the items I purchased were not being purchased. So, I increased my buying wholesale to some clothing. It still was not being bought. I couldn't understand what I was doing wrong, so I paused the purchasing and researched some more. This was my dream and I wanted it to work; I can do this... I said to myself every day. Meanwhile, I had a couple thousand just sitting in part of my house that was not selling, this went on and on. I found vendors and wholesale providers that said they would ship directly to my customers. I was so relieved but sad that I couldn't even claim those items for a loss that year in my income tax. (The only way to claim a loss is if you completely shut down your business, and I was not going to give up that quickly.) So, I lost thousands, due to a lot of the items having expiration dates and of course time made those items old, even though they were new still in the box.
So, this is why I use vendors and wholesale providers that will ship directly to you. I also have a few vendors that will not send directly to you, due to some customers state they do not receive their items, so I take the fall if this would occur, (but I have not run into this situation yet) but these items do have a longer processing time. This is why I do not place extremely different shipping options, only the cost it would be to send the item to you from my location once it ships to me, or the cost the vendor charges to ship the item to you. You will not be overcharged, if anything, it would be less than it would really cost. I do purchase a few items here and there, now and then, if I see something interesting, but I do not invest thousands. I still spend a lot of time adding products to the store, but most are stored at a vendor warehouses.
So please do not think I am being selfish using vendors, I have learned a valuable lesson when it comes to online shopping, shipping, and purchasing. It mostly will cost you thousands due to many large companies that overhaul our small businesses. If you are someone who has questions about startup of a business or if you have questions on what not to do, send me a text! 🤷♀️ I am always here to help.