Delivery Countries, charges and times

We try to provide a fair service at a reasonable cost to all left-handers worldwide and to break-even overall on packing and delivery costs and charges to customers.

We are based in the United Kingdom but we want to treat all our customers all round the world fairly. To keep things simple, we charge a fixed amount for delivery depending on your location and the value of your order as shown in the table below.
Click the region name in the table or scroll down to see the full list of countries in each region.

 

Region	Orders up to £40.00	Orders over £40.00	Normal delivery time **
United Kingdom and BFPO	£4.95	£4.95	2-4 days
Europe (EU)	£5.95	£6.95	4-10 days but please allow at least 2 weeks before contacting us
Worldwide Airmail zone: Europe (Non-EU), United States, Canada, Australasia, Japan and all other airmail areas	£5.95	£7.95	5-15 days but please allow at least 4 weeks before contacting us
Airsure tracked airmail required Brazil, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore	£10.55	£12.55	4-6 days but please allow at least 2 weeks before contacting us
Airsure tracked airmail optional (see list of countries below)	£10.55	£12.55	4-6 days but please allow at least 2 weeks before contacting us
Countries for Courier delivery only (see list of countries below)	Low rate £24.95 High rate £29.95	Low rate £32.95 High rate £39.95	3-6 days
Countries that we cannot deliver to (see list of countries below)	n/a	n/a	n/a
More information on the thinking behind our delivery chargesClick here if these charges seem too high to youWhy do you have to pay for a UPS courier?Will I have to pay any additional amounts for customs duty or taxes?Click here to see a full alphabetic list of countries with their delivery zones Lost parcels

 

** This is the delivery time from the day you place your order online, e.g. for UK, we despatch the next day and First Class post should arrive the working day after that.

Charges in other currencies (Euro at 1.16 and US Dollar at 1.59)

Region	Orders up to Eur £46.40	Orders over Eur 46.40
Europe (EU)	Eur 6.90	Eur 8.06
Region	Orders up to USD 63.60	Orders over USD 63.60
Worldwide Airmail zone: Europe (Non-EU), United States, Canada, Australasia, Japan and all other airmail areas	USD $9.46	USD $12.64
Countries for Courier delivery only (see below)	Low rate USD $39.67 High rate USD $47.62	Low rate USD $52.39 High rate £63.52
Countries that we cannot deliver to	n/a	n/a

The charge for your order will be shown on our checkout screen once you have chosen your delivery country.

United Kingdom

Normally parcels will be sent by First Class mail but depending on the weight and your location we may use the UPS tracked parcel service at no additional cost to you.

United Kingdom

Guernsey

Jersey

BFPO Postcodes

 

Europe (EU)

Parcels will usually be sent by airmail post

Austria

Belgium

Bulgaria

Cyprus

Czech Republic

Denmark

Estonia

Finland

France

Germany

Gibraltar

Greece

Hungary

Ireland

Italy

Latvia

Lithuania

Luxembourg

Malta

Netherlands

Poland

Portugal

Romania

Slovak Republic

Slovenia

Spain

Sweden

 

Worldwide airmail

These are the countries outside the EU where we are happy to send parcels by airmail and have not had problems with deliveries

Andorra

Antigua and Barbuda

Australia

Bahamas

Bahrain

Barbados

Bermuda

Canada

Croatia

Egypt

Falkland Islands

Hong Kong

Iceland

Israel

Japan

Kuwait

Liechtenstein

Macedonia

Mexico

Monaco

New Zealand (Aotearoa)

Norway

Oman

Puerto Rico

Qatar

San Marino

Singapore

Switzerland

United Arab Emirates

United States

Vatican City State (Holy See)

Virgin Islands (British)

Virgin Islands (U.S.)

Airsure tracked airmail required

These are countries that we have had difficulty delivering to by normal airmail but are covered by the Royal Mail Airsure tracked  airmail service.  We charge you the additional cost of £4.60 above normal airmail for this service (but it it a lot cheaper than the alternative of ousing a courier!).

Brazil
Hong Kong
Malaysia
Singapore

Airsure tracked airmail optional

For these counties we can deliver by standard airmail but the Airsure service will give you priority delivery which is at least one day faster than airmail and you will be able to track your parcel online.  We do have to pass on the additional cost of £4.60 on top of normal airmail rates.

Andorra
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Canada
Denmark
Estonia
Faroe Islands
Finland
France
Germany
Iceland
Ireland
Latvia
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Malta
Monaco
Netherlands
New Zealand
Portugal
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
United States

Courier delivery only

There are some countries where the local postal delivery service does not seem reliable and in our experience most parcels do not arrive with the customer if sent by standard airmail. We are happy to deliver to these countries but will only do so using a tracked courier service with UPS, which costs more but does guarantee your parcel will arrive.

See the important note below of duty and tax charges

Low rate 24.95 / 32.95

Albania

Belarus

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Greenland

Moldova

Turkey

Ukraine

 

High rate 29.95 / 39.95

Algeria

American Samoa

Angola

Anguilla

Argentina

Armenia

Aruba

Azerbaijan

Bangladesh

Belize

Benin

Bhutan

Bolivia

Botswana

Brunei Darussalam

Burkina Faso

Burundi

Cambodia

Cameroon

Cape Verde

Cayman Islands

Central African Republic

Chad

Chile

China

Colombia

Comoros

Congo

Cook Islands

Costa Rica

Cote D’Ivoire (Ivory Coast)

Djibouti

Dominica

Dominican Republic

Ecuador

El Salvador

Equatorial Guinea

Eritrea

Ethiopia

Fiji

French Guiana

French Polynesia

Gabon

Gambia

Georgia

Ghana

Grenada

Guadeloupe

Guam

Guatemala

Guinea

Guinea-Bissau

Guyana

Haiti

Honduras

India

Indonesia

Iraq

Jamaica

Jordan

Kazakhstan

Kenya

Kiribati

Korea (South)

Kyrgyzstan

Laos

Lebanon

Lesotho

Liberia

Libya

Macau

Madagascar

Malawi

Maldives

Mali

Marshall Islands

Martinique

Mauritania

Mauritius

Mayotte

Micronesia

Mongolia

Montserrat

Morocco

Mozambique

Namibia

Nepal

Netherlands Antilles

New Caledonia

Nicaragua

Niger

Nigeria

Northern Mariana Islands

Pakistan

Palau

Panama

Papua New Guinea

Paraguay

Peru

Philippines

Reunion

Saint Kitts and Nevis

Saint Lucia

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Samoa

Saudi Arabia

Senegal

Seychelles

Sierra Leone

Solomon Islands

South Africa

Sri Lanka

Suriname

Swaziland

Syria

Taiwan

Tajikistan

Tanzania

Thailand

Togo

Tonga

Trinidad and Tobago

Tunisia

Turkmenistan

Turks and Caicos Islands

Tuvalu

Uganda

Uruguay

Uzbekistan

Vanuatu

Venezuela

Vietnam

Wallis and Futuna Islands

Yemen

Zambia

 

Countries and areas we cannot deliver to

For countries where UPS do not provide a delivery service, unfortunately we will not be able to accept your order.

Afghanistan

Antarctica

Bouvet Island

British Indian Ocean Territory

Burma

Christmas Island

Cocos (Keeling) Islands

Cuba

East Timor

French Southern Territories

Heard and McDonald Islands

Iran

Korea (North)

Myanmar

Nauru

Niue

Norfolk Island

Pitcairn

Russian Federation **

Rwanda

S. Georgia and S. Sandwich Isls.

Sao Tome and Principe

Somalia

St. Helena

St. Pierre and Miquelon

Sudan

Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands

Tokelau

US Minor Outlying Islands

Western Sahara

Yugoslavia

Zaire

Zimbabwe

** Russian Federation – For many years we have been able to deliver to Russia but recently we keep getting parcels returned by customs.  We have been advised by our fulfilment company and UPS that since May 2010 Russian customs are refusing all non-document shipments to residential addresses.  When parcels are returned to us we incur significant costs that we cannot recover and customers get annoyed that their goods have not been delivered so we have had to stop taking orders for Russian addresses – sorry.

 

The thinking behind our delivery charges

Our delivery charge is an averaged amount to cover the cost of our packing the order, the padded envelope or other packing materials and the postage cost. It may seem like a lot if you only order a single ruler, but it is very good value of you order heavy products like, books, knives or folders!

Our charges compare favourably with other web businesses and avoid lots of complications:

• We could charge a fixed price and then so much extra per item, like Amazon, but often people order a number of small items like pens and sharpeners and this would give an unfairly high charge.
• If we charged by weight, we would be undercharging for items like writing mats that are light but very large
• The UK post office now charge not just by weight but by size and packet thickness as well which adds more complexity

Overall, we hope we have got the balance right and that the simplicity of a fixed charge is better than the other option of calculating individual order delivery charges based on weight of products and geographical location.

We are not able to calculate special reduced postage charges for individual orders that happen to be for lightweight items and we will not try to charge you extra if you only order heavy things!

If you need any more information, please contact us

Click here to see a full alphabetic list of countries with their delivery zones

If you think our delivery charges are too high…

Customers sometimes ask if our delivery charge is too high, particularly when only ordering a single low priced item, but there is a good reason for it…

The actual postage cost to send a single peeler may be between £1.50 and £3.00 depending where it is going but we also have to pay for the fulfilment of the order (warehousing, pick, pack, despatch), which costs us a minimum £2.50 plus the cost of a padded bag, document printing, document envelope to stick on the outside.

For larger orders, the packing cost and postage goes up but we keep the charge to our customers at the same fixed rate for all orders up to £40.00 then a little more above that as the weight of the items means the postage cost goes up rapidly. That fixed charge doesn’t seem as big for people ordering £30 or more of products, which is around the average for our orders.

If we are going to stay in business and continue to search out and supply left-handed products and also provide all the free information, newsletters and personal advice for our site visitors, we have to make sure we are at least covering our costs.

We do have a lot of fixed cost in processing an order and it is just not viable if we charge less, even though it can seem like is a lot if you are only ordering a single low value item like a peeler. Best to add a few more items you really want to your order at no extra delivery charge to make it worthwhile

We hope that makes sense.

Why do you have to pay for a courier to some countries?

We have sent thousands of parcels all round the world over the last 40 years and in our experience airmail parcels to some countries just don’t seem to reach the customer. If your parcel gets “lost” it involves a big delay for you and your time spent chasing it around and, usually, the cost of sending the whole thing again, often more than once!

That does not give the high standard of customer service that we always aim for, so where we think there could be delivery problems with standard airmail we will still deliver your order, but only using a tracked service from UPS so we know it will definitely get to you.

Unfortunately, there is a much higher cost for that as we have to pay for the UPS service, but we hope you will agree it is worth it to make sure you actually get the left-handed items you are ordering.

There is also an option to pay the extra charge for a courier for any country if you want to make sure your order gets to you quickly and safely with signed-for delivery.

Lost parcels

We usually despatch orders from our warehouse on the working day after they are placed either by First Class post in the UK or Airmail outside the UK.  We use these services to minimise the cost we have to charge customers for delivery, but it does mean there are no tracking details for the parcels.

The vast majority of parcels arrive within the times in our delivery table above.  However, things do sometimes get delayed in the mail, especially over the busy holiday periods, and we also find that sometimes the postal service try to deliver an item but there is nobody there and it is too big to fit in the post box. They normally leave a card when this happens but not always!  Please could you check with your local postal delivery office to see if they are holding it for any reason.

In our experience, most “lost” parcels do actually arrive – usually the day after we have agreed to either re-send the order or refund it!!  We are not able to make a claim for a lost parcel until at least 4 weeks after it was supposed to be delivered.

If your order is one of the exceptions that takes a bit longer than normal to arrive, please bear with us and give it a few extra days to see if it turns up.  If  it has still not arrived, please let us know and we will have to re-send the items for you or refund the order if you prefer.  If you want us to re-send it, please could you confirm your full mailing address when you contact us.

Please be assured that we will definitely deal with it to your complete satisfaction somehow!

Duty and import regulations

If you are purchasing from outside the UK, you may be subject to import duties or other taxes levied by your customs authorities. You will be responsible for any additional charges as we have no control over these charges and cannot predict what they will be.

Customs policies vary widely from country to country and you should contact your local customs office for further information if you are concerned about this. Additionally, you are considered the importer and must comply with all law and regulations of the country in which you are receiving the goods.

From our experience of both sending and receiving good internationally, it seems a lot of the parcels sent by standard airmail can bypass the customs checks and are not picked up for duty charges.  However, if your parcel is being sent by UPS Courier, they nearly always get assessed for duty and UPS will contact you for payment of any duty and tax due before delivering the parcel.

Please note that Anything Left-Handed is not responsible for any duty or tax charges and if any are charged you will need to pay them yourself direct to the delivery company before they will deliver your parcel.