Shipping

Shipping:

For orders received before 11.30am, online at SM Designs, we aim to dispatch (items that are in stock) by the end of the following working day. During periods of high volumes of orders, dispatch may be delayed further by one working day. So we would expect to dispatch most orders within two complete working days (not including part days for orders placed after 11.30am).

Orders from countries outside the UK are likely to take longer to despatch due to the notice required to book courier collections. Orders with issues that require us to contact you will also take longer.

Our back order procedure will apply to items that are out of stock.

We use Royal Mail for small packages and competitively priced couriers for larger parcels.

These examples are a guide to typical delivery times. This is not an exhaustive list of every possible combination of services and locations. Our couriers and postal services cannot guarantee these delivery times. Only the Special Delivery transit time after despatch is guaranteed, but we cannot guarantee the day of dispatch.

There is currently no option on SM Designs for Special Delivery Before 1pm, Special Delivery Saturday delivery. We do not normally offer these services because they are expensive and because the website cannot know with certainty when the actual despatch date will be. However, if you think you might need a Saturday or time-slot delivery, please telephone us for a quote, availability and to arrange it with a member of SM Designs staff in person. (Click here for contact details).

If your parcel comes by courier, Recorded Delivery, Special Delivery or Air Mail Signed For, you will be required to sign for receipt. The table above will give you a good idea when to expect the item. You will receive an email telling you when it has been despatched, which will give you a better indication when it will arrive. If no-one is available at the address to sign for the parcel when it arrives it will be taken back to your nearest depot and a card should be left asking you to contact the depot.

When "Special Postage Offers"  occurr relating to "Free Postage" the offer will only apply to countries in the UK and Ireland.  Items ordered for delivery to the UK or Ireland under such offers will be despatched under "Royal Mail 2nd Class Small Parcel" service or "International Standard Post".  Expedited Service charges will still apply (eg. Royal Mail 1st Class, Royal Mail Special Delivery, Royal Mail International Signed for, Courier Services) and are excluded from "Free Postage" offers

Back Orders:

We constantly monitor demand to make sure we have the right levels of stock. However, as we stock over a thousand inpidual items, it is a statistical inevitability that an item will run of stock occasionally. Most of our orders are received by phone and fax, so the web orders only represent a small part of our stock flow. This means that the stock levels on the website can never be up-to-the-minute in line with our central order processing software. However, the stock levels on SMDesigns.co.uk are updated every day so the website can give a good indication of stock availability. Delivery times for out of stock items are based on typical delivery times from the manufacturer and the approximate date of the next expected delivery if the date is known. We have a back order procedure which allows you to include out of stock items on your order. It works as follows:

• For the UK: If an item is out of stock on the day that your order is received we will send everything that is in stock and the out of stock item will remain on back order. We may send you an email telling you when we expect to have the item in stock if the delivery time is expected to be significantly different from the availability shown on the website product page. When it arrives into stock we will automatically send it to you as soon as possible. Postage and packaging on any back order items is free within the UK. The main delivery will be sent by your chosen delivery service, but we will send back order items later by the most economical method depending on volume/weight.
• For Other Countries: We may have to hold the whole order until the out of stock item is available if sending two parcels would signifiantly exceed the carriage quoted and charged at the SMDesigns.co.uk checkout. However, if the first or second parcel is light enough we may decide to send the extra parcel at no extra charge. In this case the main delivery will be sent by your chosen delivery service, but we will send back order items later by the most economical method depending on volume/weight.

If the back order item is the main item and you would not wish to use the other items on your order without having the back order item, then we may contact you to ask if you would prefer us to hold the whole order until it is complete. If you wish to wait then we will send the whole order as soon as the back order item arrives into stock by the delivery method you selected.

When providing payment details over our secure SSL-Encrypted & Certified payment page or by phone we will take payment only for the items that are despatched. We will not take payment for the back order item until we despatch the back order item.

If you have items on back order, you may cancel the back order at any time by replying to your order confirmation email, emailing us through our Contact Us page (click here) or by telephoning +44 (0)739 435 1753, if we have already despatched the goods you may choose to keep the back order items or use the returns procedure below.