Shipping Policy

 

Shipping Times

  • Orders are generally processed and shipped within 24 hours, Monday through Friday. In most cases, orders received before 12PM Eastern U.S. time (UTC -5) will be shipped the same day.
  • A delay in shipping time can occur during sale events when we have a large volume of orders. Such delays, if any, would only be one day.

How We Ship

  • We ship exclusively with USPS, both domestic and internationally, using a flat rate system based upon the total weight of the order. USPS is closed for all federal U.S. holidays and no shipping will occur on such days.
  • We offer First Class Mail to all destinations, so that shipping costs can be as little as possible, as long as the weight of the package does not exceed the limits. If your package exceeds the limit for First Class shipping, that option will not appear during checkout.
  • Priority Mail and Priority Mail Express services are also offered during checkout. The differences in cost between First Class and Priority is not that much for U.S. addresses, but can be quite different for international shipments. In the U.S., since the transit time for First Class Mail packages is virtually the same as Priority in many cases, we recommend First Class Mail. It is your option, however.

Domestic and International Shipping

  • We ship to the United States and all its territories (including APO/FPO), Canada, Mexico, South and Central America, and many other countries. If your country is not included in the dropdown box while you are checking out, that means we do not sell or ship into your country.
  • For U.S. shipments, Priority Mail is guaranteed 2-3 day delivery; Priority Mail Express is guaranteed 1-2 day delivery. These guarantees are given by USPS, not by OLYCHKA, and OLYCHKA is not responsible if USPS fails to deliver as promised.
  • For International shipments, Priority Mail is quoted as 6 days for delivery, and Priority Mail Express is quoted as 3-5 day delivery. However, these quotes are sometimes unreliable because of delays that may be encountered in your country’s customs service and/or local postal service. Tracking is sometimes unreliable as well, because the package’s bar code must be scanned for tracking to be updated. If your customs service or postal service fails to scan the package, the USPS tracking system will not be updated. Generally, international shipments are delivered in a reasonable amount of time, but we have had instances where actual delivery has exceeded one month. OLYCHKA will not assume responsibilty for any international shipment once it is clear from the tracking information that the package has left the United States, nor can we contact USPS on your behalf before at least one month has passed since the date the shipment left the United States. Please bear these conditions in mind if you are an international customer, and, by placing an order with OLYCHKA, you are accepting these conditions.

Claims

We realize the frustration of not receiving an order in a timely fashion. Delays do occur and virtually all packages do get delivered, even if later than expected. We are happy to assist in trying to locate any late or lost packages. However, we do need to rely on the tracking information provided by USPS and filing a claim with them never provides immediate answers, and often no information is forthcoming for quite some time.
One very worrisome situation is when the tracking says a package has been delivered, but the recipient claims not to have received the package. We have found that trying to file a claim under these conditions is not possible. Once a package is declared “delivered,” USPS is of no real help in finding the package. However, there actually is some hope, which we discovered because we encountered a “delivered” item ourselves, which we did not actually receive. Our postal carrier told us that the last tracking scan where the package was delivered has GPS coordinates attached to it. This is something we were never told when contacting USPS directly. Our carrier was able to see exactly where the package was delivered, retrieve it, and then deliver it to us. If you see by the tracking information that your package has been “delivered,” but you have not received it, we urge you to contact your postal carrier and have him/her check the GPS coordinates.