shipping-and-customs

# Shipping, duties and customs The complaint is never the duty. It is the surprise. ## Say it before they order For a cross-border order: whether duty is prepaid or collected on delivery, who collects it, roughly what it will be on that value, and that it is set by the destination country rather than by the shop. ## Delivery windows Give working days from **dispatch**, not from order, and say what dispatch depends on. Name the cut-off time and the days it does not run. ## Restrictions Check the destination before promising anything for batteries, liquids, aerosols and anything perishable. A restricted item found at the border is a lost parcel, not a delayed one. ## When a parcel is held Say what is being asked for, who has to provide it, and by when — held parcels are returned or destroyed on a timer, and customers rarely know that. ## Never Estimate a duty as zero to close a sale, or mis-describe contents or value on a declaration for any reason.