Shipping Policy

Southern Botanicals offers a choice of UPS or USPS (US Postal Service) shipping.

We ship Monday through Friday, not including holidays. We are closed on the weekend. Orders are usually shipped the next business day. We have to have time to process and package your orders for the carrier you choose.

THe Post Office recently changed their hours for local shipping so that same day shipping is not always possible. If you need same day shipping, we recommend you choose UPS. If you place a phone order for UPS shipping by phone by 2:30 pm or so, or online by 1pm, we can often get it out the same day for you. Please call us if you want to be sure.

What About Free Shipping?

Did you know that most companies who offer Free Shipping wrap the cost of shipping into the cost of the products? It is not really free.

If you ask for a refund on an item that a company says has been shipped to you for "free", you usually find out that the real cost of that shipping was included in the price, and now they intend to deduct that shipping cost from your refund!

Think about it... the price of the product includes a shipping cost to the farthest location they ship to, even if you live in the next state or even if you walk in the door to buy it! And companies that offer free shipping AND free returns to entice people to buy and try, are charging twice the shipping cost - there and back - to every customer who buys it. They can pocket the extra shipping money when people keep their product. Does this practice raise the price on everything? You bet it does!

We dislike this practice and don't do it. We know people depend on our products, and we do not wish to raise the price out of sight, even though we could make a lot more money doing that along with razzamatazz marketing. We would just like to supply you with high quality natural products that effectively help you maintain your good health.

Domestic

• USPS - United States Postal Service is one of our our primary shipping company.
  
  The POst Office does deliver on Saturdays, but not Sundays.


• USPS Ground Advantage - Normally 3 - 7 days delivery


• USPS Priority Mail - Normally 2 - 5 days delivery, but the Post Office does not give a money-back guarantee.


• Priority Mail Express 1 - 3 days from the date of shipping, but not guaranteed.




• 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.
  
  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 or place your order by 1 pm online, or by 2:30 pm if you place your order by by phone.


• Ground - Normally 2 - 5 Business Days delivery depending on location anywhere in the Continental US, often 1-2 days in Florida.
  
  UPS Ground packages are only delivered on weekdays Monday - Friday, and excluding major 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 USPS Priority Express Mail.
  
  3 Day Select packages are only delivered on weekdays, Monday - Friday, and excluding major 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 by phone and tell us when you will be here and we will have the order ready for you to pickup Monday-Friday from 10:00 AM - 5:45 PM at our retail store located at 611 S Myrtle Ave #D, Clearwater, FL 33756 (see map on our Contact Us page).

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 within 10 - 15 days after tracking number is sent and order is shipped, so that we can investigate the matter. Contact Us We cannot be held responsible for lost orders if we are not notified by you within 15 days from the day your tracking number is emailed to you. 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 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 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. Contact us by email on our Contact Us page - or call us durung store hours (727) 443-7711 9:30am - 6:00pm Monday - Friday, or leave us a message on the weekend.

Please take photos to email us if the package has been damaged during shipment. 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 everything including all packaging material and the box in case the carrier wants to inspect the condition of the package.

Return Policy

Southern Botanicals offers a 1 month (30 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 60 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.

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.

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.

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.