Time Eclectic Shipping Policies and Information

When We Ship

Time Eclectic makes every effort to ship items out as quickly as possible – we do not like waiting for stuff either. Our normal mail pickup is very early (8 AM ET [UTC-05]) and we are generally able to get any orders that come in before 7 AM shipped out on the same day.

Time Eclectic always ships by the next business day. A “business day” is defined as 9 AM to 5 PM ET, Monday through Friday and excludes USA holidays. Please note that one subtlety of this is that orders received after 5 PM are considered as placed on the next business day. For example, an order placed at 5:15 PM Tuesday is considered as having been placed on Wednesday business day. In this example, Thursday is the next business day.

That is the long explanation; the short version is that we always ship fast.

Customs Documents

The purchase price of the item is always the declared value. Period.

Time Eclectic will not participate in customs fraud scams. This includes marking down the customs value or labeling purchased merchandise as “gift”.

The most common penalty for customs fraud is that the importer (buyer) gets fined by the local customs office. Other penalties can include fines for the shipper, seizure of the item, loss of export privileges, Amazon lifetime ban, and prison.

When Time Eclectic receives a customs fraud request, our policy is to:

Report the violation to Amazon.
Cancel any existing orders.
Lifetime buyer ban from all Landt, Inc. companies.

Shipping Methods

Time Eclectic uses a variety of shippers and shipping methods and all shipping methods are available by request. The following table summarizes our most common shipping methods:

Carrier	Service	Notes
Local Pickup	All items are available for local pickup at no additional cost. We have an agreement with The UPS Store #5879 for our local buyers to pick up orders. Please be aware that The UPS Store #5879 cannot collect payments for Time Eclectic, so everything must be paid before the item can be picked up. The UPS Store #5879 is located on Creedmoor at Lynn in North Raleigh.
UPS - guaranteed delivery times and true door-to-door tracking.	Next Day Air Saver	Economical next-day delivery.
	2nd Day Air	2-day delivery.
	Ground	Best for larger items and some Eastern USA shipments.
	Worldwide Expedited	Least expensive UPS international.
	Standard to Canada	Least expensive UPS to Canada.
USPS - inexpensive and reliable, but no guaranteed delivery times and no door-to-door tracking.	Express Mail (EMS)	Fastest USPS shipping. Note that it is currently illegal to send watches internationally via Express Mail.
	Priority Mail	Best general-purpose shipping method.
	First Class Mail	Best for small, light, or inexpensive items.
DHL	International services	DHL no longer operates in the US, so this option is only available for international orders. Please note that all package handling inside the US is done by DHL contractors, not DHL, and may require additional handling fees.
FedEx	any	FedEx (especially Ground) is really bad in our area, so we try not to give them any business at all.
Freight	any	This works best for large orders that require palletizing. We use a variety of freight shippers, but Yellow and UPS our preferred. Please note that Time Eclectic does not have a loading dock, so all freight orders require that the freight company bring a forklift or lift-gate truck.

Substituted Shipping Methods

Please be aware that unless the buyer requests a specific shipping method, Time Eclectic may substitute shipping methods at any time, regardless of the shipping method described in the item listing. The reason for this is that the default shipping method shown may not make the most sense depending on the situation.

For example: a buyer in California orders an Angular Momentum AXIS/VI Digital Swiss Watch and requests next-day shipping to a post office box. USPS does not allow any guaranteed next-day delivery service carriers to deliver to PO boxes, so we would ship Express Mail as the closest available service.

USPS Tracking Information

USPS tracking numbers are not tracking numbers - if you need real door-to-door package tracking, then choose 2nd Day or Next Day shipping.

USPS is inexpensive and very reliable, but package tracking is terrible. Technically, the numbers provided by USPS are not tracking numbers at all: it is either a “delivery confirmation number” for domestic shipments or a “customs declaration number” for international shipments. This also means that the tracking information may never show up on USPS.com.

Our experience is that the most common USPS tracking failure is the forever-“Status: Electronic Shipping Info Received” message. If this message is still displayed more than one day after an item has physically shipped, then USPS.com will probably display this same status message forever. This type of error happens all the time and seems to be a lot worse around USA holidays.

If you see a USPS tracking error, not to worry: your item really did ship and is still fully traceable should anything go wrong with the shipment.

Domestic Shipping Notes

Time Eclectic is required to collect sales tax on both the item and the shipping for all shipments to North Carolina addresses.

All Post Office Box addresses must ship via USPS. This is a requirement of USPS and USPS does not allow any other shippers access to P.O. boxes. We recommend getting a box at a The UPS Store if you need multi-carrier deliveries.

International Shipping Notes

Time Eclectic is a firm believer in the international flavor of Internet commerce: it is important for the online community of buyers and sellers to be able to buy and sell across borders, anywhere in the world, anytime. Time Eclectic strongly supports the global online commerce community and makes a point of shipping everywhere we can, however, there are some restrictions we have to follow.

Customs forms.Time Eclectic will not falsify customs documents. Please refer to the Customs Documents section for more information.
Express Mail (EMS) and Watches. It is currently illegal to send watches to via Express Mail. Because of this, Express Mail International is not available for watches.
Declared value. The declared value that goes on the customs form is the sale price of the item.
Duties and fees. The importer (buyer) is always responsible for all import duties and customs fees. Please contact your local customs office for any questions regarding these fees/taxes as these are always assessed locally. There is no way for Time Eclectic to know what these costs will be for your country.
Price tag removal. We will remove price tags at buyer’s request. Time Eclectic normally ships all items with the price tags intact. This can cause problems in some countries where the item has a price tag that says one thing, but the invoice and customs forms say something else. This is especially true with wristwatches. Just let us know when you order that this may be an issue with your country’s customs service and we will remove the price tags. If you still need the price tags, we will mail them to you by regular post. There is no charge for this service.
US only items. Some item sales are USA-only. For example, software and firearms related items fall into this category. The reason for this is that the export and import laws can get extremely complex for some item categories. Time Eclectic simply does not have the resources to make sure an item is legal for export from the US and import to each country. We realize this is an inconvenience to buyers, but we simply have no choice.

Time Eclectic’s goal is to make international orders as easy and cost effective as domestic orders, so this list is very short and will stay very short.

Why is shipping to my country so expensive!?

Time Eclectic does everything practical to keep international shipping costs down as low as possible. Unfortunately, this only works so far: we ran into a major problem with a number of dishonest buyers who are exploiting a weakness in the international mail tracking systems.

Most international mail packages use the long customs declaration form (CQ...US or EC...US tracking numbers) and these packages are fully traceable/insurable from end-to-end through the entire shipping process. However, some package types use the short customs form (LJ...US tracking numbers) and these packages are only traceable inside the United States. This means that these short-form shipments disappear from the tracking system once they pass through US Customs.

The problem is that these ‘LJ’ packages are completely untraceable and look exactly like a lost package after a few days. Several buyers were taking advantage of this weakness in the system and filed item-not-received claims within a few days of ordering. Amazon has no choice but to honor these claims because there is no way to trace the shipment. The specific USPS shipping products with this problem are: First Class Mail International, Priority Mail Small Flat Rate Box, and all Flat Rate Envelopes.

This essentially boils down to: Time Eclectic can only ship using fully traceable, meaning more expensive, shipping. We realize that this is an inconvenience, but it is what it is.

That is the bad news. The good news is that Time Eclectic does combine shipping for multi-item orders, so the total shipping cost will stay about the same, regardless of the number of items ordered.

Country-Specific Notes

Brazil. Time Eclectic is shipping to Brazil on a probationary basis. We have had a lot of problems with Correios “losing” packages and buyer scams coming out of Brazil, which means that we may suspend Brazil shipping at any time.
Philippines. We ship a lot of watches to the Philippines and our normal shipping method is USPS. However, almost all our Philippines buyers prefer Johnny Air as they seem to be cheaper and a lot more reliable than the other shipping services. For Time Eclectic, Johnny Air shipments look just like any other US shipment. Buyers negotiate directly with Johnny Air for shipment from their offices to the Philippines. Johnny Air’s website is www.johnnyair.com and most buyers use Johnny Air’s Queens, New York office (closest to Time Eclectic). Note that Time Eclectic is in no way affiliated with Johnny Air and we only mention this option as a courtesy to our customers.
United Kingdom. Please be aware that USPS Priority Mail tracking information will be wrong for shipments to the UK. When USPS Priority Mail packages clear UK customs, they are turned over to Royal Mail and the USPS system will report the package as either “delivery attempted...” or “delivered...”. Not to worry: your package is not lost. These messages just mean that Royal Mail has it and you should receive it within a day or two. Unfortunately, there is no way to track these packages online in Royal Mail (yet). This same problem occurs with Express Mail International, but Royal Mail assigns an RM number to the package and it can be tracked through Royal Mail with the new number (enter the USPS tracking number in RM online tracking to see the RM number).
United States of Etc. Shipments to any APO/DPO/FPO/etc. address must ship via USPS. This is a USPS requirement.
Although not required, shipments to any USA territory, protectorate, associated free state, and so on, also ship via USPS. The reason for this is that USPS treats these locations as domestic shipping, but other carriers must treat it as a foreign destination. This means that UPS/FedEx/etc. with charge additional customs broker fees and import duties on delivery. USPS does not have this issue, so the cost to the buyer is much, much lower.