Shipping Policy

Southern Botanicals offers a variety of options for fast and easy shipping.

Orders are usually shipped within one business day of being received. Our shipping days are Monday through Friday and we are not open on the weekend.

Orders placed on Saturday, Sunday or a holiday will be shipped the following business day.

If you need same day shipping, please call us at (727) 443-7711 by 10:45am ET for US Post Office, or by 2:30pm ET for UPS. Sometimes same day shipping is even possible later in the day if you call before 3:30pm ET, but there may be an additional charge if we have to make an extra trip.

What About Free Shipping?

Domestic

• USPS - United States Postal Service is our primary shipping company.


• First Class - Normally 3 - 7 days delivery
  
  
• Priority Mail - Normally 2 - 5 days delivery, but the Post Office does not offer a money-back guarantee.
  


• Priority Mail Express - Guaranteed 1 - 2 days from the date of shipping. (May take two days depending on location - read more).
  


• NOTE: USPS First Class Mail is cheaper then USPS Priority Mail, but normally takes longer to be delivered and maybe as long as a week. Priority Mail is recommended for faster service.


• UPS - United Parcel Service


• Notes for All UPS Packages: UPS does not deliver to P.O. Boxes.
  UPS delivers on business days only, Monday through Friday excluding holidays. There is an exception for special Saturday deliveries to certain locations and for which they charge an extra fee. Read more details below.
  
  Orders are processed by us and made ready for UPS pick-up usually within one business day. Many times we can get them out the same day - especially if you call to ask if we can expedite the order you placed on the website, or that you place by phone.


• Ground - Normally 2 - 5 Business Days delivery depending on location anywhere in the Continental US, usually 1 day in Florida, not guaranteed.
  
  UPS Ground packages are only delivered on weekdays Monday - Friday, excluding holidays.


• 3 Day Select * - Useful if your package is to be delivered across the country from Florida and you don't want to wait a week for Ground, but don't want to pay for Next Day delivery or Priority Express Mail.
  
  3 Day Select packages are only delivered on weekdays, Monday - Friday excluding holidays.


• 2nd Day Air - Delivery guaranteed by UPS in 2 business days, after leaving our facility (usually within one business day of order, or possibly same day).
  
  2nd Day Air packages shipped on Friday will arrive on Tuesday.


• Next Day Air - Delivery guaranteed by 10:30 AM unless a rural area. Please check with UPS.com
  
  UPS Next Day Air shipped on Friday will be delivered the following Monday.


• Saturday UPS Delivery - UPS Saturday delivery is not normal but can be arranged for UPS Next Day and 2nd Day Air. You must call us to arrange this; we will check if it is available to your location. UPS requires special handling and fees, that cannot be set up by email.
  
  Only UPS Air packages sent to residential addresses can be labeled and processed for Saturday delivery, if available for your area.
  
  Otherwise all UPS Air deliveries are made only on weekdays.


• Local Pickup
• If you have a local address, you can order on the website or call ahead and we will have the order ready for you to pickup at our retail store located at 611 S Myrtle Ave #D, Clearwater, FL 33756 (map) Monday-Friday from 9:30 AM until 6:00 PM.

Lost Orders

Please watch for your package. We will provide tracking information by email to our customers by the end of the day the order is shipped. It is the responsibility of our customers to be aware of the tracking information and be on the look out for their package to arrive.

If for any reason you do not receive your order in a timely manner, please let us know at least 10 - 15 days after shipment so that we can investigate the matter. We cannot be held responsible for lost orders if we are not notified by you in at least 15 days from the time the order is shipped. The Post Office will only start an investigation after a week from shipment date, (unless Express Mail).

Wrong Addresses

You are responsible for giving us the correct address to ship your package to. We cannot be held responsible if you enter an incorrect shipping address such that the package is shipped to another person / address and is not recoverable. We will have to charge you the full order price again if you want the order reshipped to the correct address. We cannot issue refunds for address mistakes that were made by you causing loss of a package. If the package is returned to us by the Post Office as undeliverable, we will contact you to either reship it to you with a new shipping charge, or refund the cost of the item minus shipping and handling and a 20% restocking fee. Sorry, we do not refund for shipping if you give us the wrong address.

Returned Or Refused Packages

A product refund minus any shipping fees and a 20% restocking fee will be issued if a package is undeliverable or refused.

Damaged Orders / Damaged or Missing Merchandise Policy

Please contact us within three business days after the package has been delivered to notify us of any damage to the products or if there are any products missing from the order at Email or call (727) 443-7711 9:30am - 6:00pm Monday - Friday.

If you suspect that an item has been damaged during shipment or an item is missing from your order, please notify us immediately (within 3 business days after delivery) to report the damage so that we can notify the shipping carrier and file a claim. You should keep all packaging material and the box in case the carrier wants to inspect the condition of the package.

Return Policy

Southern Botanicals offers a competitive 2 month (60 day) return policy to customers, provided the product(s) are non-perishable, unopened, and undamaged (resalable condition). Any other request will be decided on a case by case basis.

A 20% Restocking Fee will be applied to returns older than 30 days.

You will be responsible for the cost of return shipping - unless the return is due to our mistake (in that case, we will provide a return label).

Please be sure to contact us either online or by phone in order to arrange for your return prior to shipping the product(s) back to us.

International Orders

We do accept payments through PayPal. Please note that you will still need a U.S billing address to pay by credit card.

We prefer use a shipping method that includes tracking as below whenever possible when we ship to destinations outside of the United States.

• USPS (United States Postal Service)


• First-Class International - no tracking information because package transfers from US postal service to your country's postal service. If your postal service is reliable this usully works well and is least expensive.


• Priority Express International - usually takes about 3 - 5 business days, not including time at customs; has tracking.


• UPS - depends on whether you choose Standard (ground) or Express. We generally do not recommend UPS Standard International because of the many fees charged for brokerage, etc. Click here to see a list of these on the UPS website. Some charges can be avoided by taking the actions recommended at the bottom of this page, giving Canada as an example we have some specifics for.

NOTE: The international transit times are estimates ONLY and are subject to mailing delays beyond our control such as entrance and exit customs inspections and duties in accordance with the rules and regulations of the destination country.

INTERNATIONAL DELIVERY PROBLEMS:

Customs and other restrictions of your country, taxes, duties, fees, additional local postal fees and deliverability issues are your responsibility. Please be aware that our products contain herbal ingredients which may have various import restrictions or prohibitions that you should consider before placing an order. >Canada for example charges customs fees to customers and some customers abandoned their packages rather than pay the Canadian customs fees.

We do not ship to Europe or the UK.

We have not had problems shipping to Australia, New Zealand, the Phillipines, Mexico, Barbados, Israel, South Africa, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Japan.

If your country is not listed above, please check here to see USPS lists of restrictions by country (SEE LIST).
If you find any problems or questions, we recommend that you contact your customs and postal service for the most up-to-date information in your language.

If we have not shipped to your country before, we will send you a link to ths page and ask you to verify that you have received shipments from the US before or have checked the restrictions, requirements and fees for imports to your country before we will ship to you and that you agree that you are responsible if something goes wrong when it arrives at your country.

Under no circumstance will we accept liability for lost, stolen, confiscated, opened, or damaged packages mailed internationally.

Some of our customers have us ship to friends or family in the United States who already have experience mailing to you and are able to pass it on to you; however, our responsibility ends when your package arrives at the U.S address provided.

RETURNS AND REFUNDS: We ship globally, but you are responsible for the shipment to pass import and customs entry in your country. If a shipment failed to obtain import entry or is undelivered and returned to us, upon receipt of the shipment, we will refund what has been returned unopened and undamaged, less the shipping and handling costs and a 20% restocking fee.

UPS International Standard Shipping: Avoiding Some Additional Fees
(Canada example)

This will explain the brokerage fees, bond fees and C.O.D. fees charged by UPS and what you can do to avoid them. Just recently we received this tip from one of our Canadian customers.

Customers are responsible for payment of duties (fees imposed by Customs based on the value of your shipment) and taxes (imposed by the Canadian government).

UPS Brokerage Fees consist of numerous fees, but the fees listed below (Entry Prep Fees and Bond Fees) are the ones most likely to be applied to your order over and above our shipping charges.
(Note that US Postal Service charges a minimal Brokerage Fee of about $7.50, but International First Class does not provide tracking. If the package does not arrive when expected, it is not automatically insured, so only choose USPS First Class International if you have are sure that it is reliable to your location. This is your responsibility.)

UPS Entry Preparation Fees: fees charged by UPS to take your package(s) through customs. These fees are on packages shipped STANDARD (Ground) to Canada. These fees are charged by UPS to take your package(s) through Customs.
If you can take the package through Customs yourself, you can avoid this fee.
If you use UPS Express or Expedited, there are no entry prep fees.

To avoid the Entry Preparation Fees, you can take your package(s) through Customs yourself. You will have to go to the port's UPS Customs Warehouse nearest you, pick up the paperwork on the box, take it through Customs, then return to the warehouse to get your package(s). Call UPS at 1-800- PICK-UPS after you receive a Quantum View email from UPS with your tracking number. Tell them you would like to clear the package(s) through Customs yourself. Have the tracking number handy. They will give you further instructions.
Location of UPS Customs Warehouses: Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Fort Erie, Windsor and Hamilton.

UPS Rates for Entry Preparation Fees for UPS Standard (Ground) are given below based on the value of the shipment and do not include applicable duties or taxes which are also your responsibility. All rates are in Canadian funds (2019).

• Value of Shipment: $0 - $20 =Fee: FREE
• Value of Shipment: $20.01 - $40 =Fee: $7.00
• Value of Shipment: $40.01 - $100 =Fee: $19.45
• Value of Shipment: $100.01 - $200 =Fee: $29.00
• Value of Shipment: $200.01 - $350 =Fee: $42.95
• Value of Shipment: $350.01 - $500 =Fee: $48.25

Bond Fees: fees charged by UPS to collect the duty and taxes which are the responsibility of the customer.
UPS must post a bond to allow shipments to be released in advance of payment of duties and taxes to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).
If UPS has to pay the duties and taxes for you, a fee of 2.7% of the total of these or a minimum of $5.85 will be charged.

If you pre-pay the duty and taxes, there are no bond fees. You can pay duty and taxes before your shipment arrives to avoid the bond fees and/or C.O.D. fees.

To avoid bond fees, pre-pay the duties and taxes owed on your shipment. To do this, call 1-800-PICK-UPS as soon as you receive a Quantum View email from UPS that your shipment is on its way, give them the tracking number and tell them you want to pay the duties and taxes ahead of delivery by credit card or Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) plans.

C.O.D.: fees charged by UPS to collect the duties and taxes from you at the time of delivery.
If UPS delivers your order to you and if you have not prepaid the duties and taxes, you will be charged a $4.25 C.O.D. charge on top of the duty and taxes and brokerage fees.

To avoid C.O.D. charges, pre-pay the duties and taxes owed on your shipment. To do this, call 1-800-PICK-UPS as soon as you receive a Quantum View email from UPS that your shipment is on its way, give them the tracking number and tell them you want to pay the brokerage fees, duties and taxes ahead of delivery with your credit card or Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) plans.

If you have any further questions or concerns about shipping which are not addressed here, please contact us at Email or call (727) 443-7711 9:30am - 6:00pm Monday - Friday.