We ship all non-holiday weekdays, Monday – Friday, 10 am – 4 pm Central Time (Chicago time).
We work hard to ship nearly all in-stock orders within 24 business hours, and we can ship many of our products worldwide.
Please always be sure to take a moment and double-check that you have entered all aspects of your destination shipping address information completely and correctly while placing your order, before completing the payment and check-out steps. Providing an incorrect shipping address will likely result in the delay or misdelivery of your ordered goods, and while we will work to help resolve such situations, we, unfortunately, cannot refund the cost of a shipment that’s undeliverable due to an erroneous delivery address.
How Much Will Shipping Cost? That All Depends!
During checkout, shipping options may not be visible until you enter your full destination address and payment information. Once your full destination address has been entered, you should be able to see all available shipping methods along with the price which would be charged for each option.
If you are not checking out on our site, but are requesting an order or shipment by phone or other channels, please note that we can only provide an accurate shipping quote after getting complete details on the specific items you wish to have shipped to you, your full destination address, and the carrier and shipping service by which you wish to have your order shipped to you. (This limitation occurs because precise shipping costs vary due to each of a number of specific details, including the weight of the package, the volume of the package, the shipping carrier, the shipping service, and the destination address).
If you are a US customer, we encourage taking advantage of one of our FREE shipping methods, if it meets your needs.
Here’s how to get FREE Shipping!
- Please select cart contents with a subtotal of at least $69 in value for your order on our website
- Ship to an address within the United States (including U.S. territories). Non-US orders, unfortunately, do not qualify for FREE shipping. Also, please note: COD orders or orders outside of the contiguous 48 US States may require a higher minimum order subtotal to qualify for free shipping.
- Select a shipping method at checkout which is shown as FREE ($0.00), which will always include USPS 1st Class Parcel Service:
- If the value of goods in your order after discounts, (but before taxes and non-product costs) totals more than $89, you may also choose FREE UPS Ground shipping, which we recommend for superior tracking and the ability to customize delivery while in transit using UPS My Choice! This service is typically a 2 – 4 business day service, but can be delivered in as little as 1 business day or may require as much as 5-6 business days, depending on your distance from our shipping offices in Chicago.
- If the value of goods in your order after discounts, (but before taxes and non-product costs) totals more than $99, and if you are located within the contiguous 48 US States and not using COD payment, please take advantage of our FREE UPS 2nd Day Air service option, which provides full tracking and delivery 2 shipping days after shipment.
- In case the value of goods in your order after discounts, (but before taxes and non-product costs) totals more than $299, and if you are located within the contiguous 48 US States and not using COD payment, we offer FREE UPS Next Day Day Air service, which is better yet as it provides full tracking and delivery 1 shipping day after we send it out.
Will I Need To Sign For My Package?
If your order value is less than $100, then by default, we don’t require delivery signatures, but you may request that we add a “signature required” service option by contacting us prior to placing your order.
If your order value is more than $100, then we may require an adult signature for delivery of the shipment at our discretion. If your order value is more than $200, then we will normally require an adult signature for delivery of the shipment by default. This is to help minimize the chance of lost or stolen packages for valuable orders, as well as to ensure that an adult person is present to accept goods that require safe handling. In exceptional circumstances that do not allow for signature confirmation, you may request the signature requirement be waived by contacting us just before or after placing your order.
How Long Does Shipping Take? That All Depends!
Your order will most often have a shipping label prepared the same day that it is placed, on non-holiday weekdays. Once the shipping label is prepared, your physical shipment will almost always be picked and packed, will be shipped from our Chicago warehouse / and will be en route with the shipping carrier within 1 business day.^
USPS shipments are typically shipped the same day on weekdays, if placed by credit card (or Bitcoin / after payment has been confirmed), up until 2 PM Central Time.
UPS shipments are typically shipped the same day on weekdays, if placed by credit card (or Bitcoin and after payment has been confirmed), up until 4 PM Central Time.
All delivery time estimates below are counted on the basis of business days (M-F), not on the basis of calendar days.
A shipping confirmation email containing your tracking information will be forwarded to you after your order has been scanned in by our carriers. Your order will already have been prepared and given to the carrier earlier; however, in order to avoid confusion, we may wait to send out the tracking email to you until tracking updates become viewable at the tracking link.
For UPS Shipments:
We recommend signing up for UPS MyChoice to maximize your ability to track and modify your UPS shipment.
Saturday delivery service by UPS is attempted only on a best-effort (not guaranteed) basis. UPS does not always deliver on Saturday – whereas USPS makes regular Saturday deliveries for standard shipments. We recommend considering USPS Priority Mail Express as a cost-effective means of ordering on Thursday evening or Friday morning and having a good chance of receiving your shipment on Saturday. On request, we can also seek Saturday delivery service from UPS for UPS Next Day Air shipments placed for shipment on Friday prior to our shipping cutoff.^
^Please note: We do not offer added Saturday delivery service as an option for any UPS service type besides UPS Next Day Air orders, and we can only offer the Saturday delivery upgrade for UPS Next Day Air orders that were originally received after Thursday shipping hours and in time for our standard shipping hours on Friday.
^Please note that UPS guarantees a specific delivery date for ordinary UPS Air shipments delivered during the workweek, but UPS does NOT guarantee Saturday delivery; not all addresses are eligible for the UPS Saturday delivery upgrade, and UPS will not provide a refund if they miss a requested Saturday delivery. If you would like to receive your shipment on a Saturday via UPS, want to guarantee delivery time for another specific day or event, or would like to request special shipping arrangements, please contact us by phone prior to placing your order, and we’ll do our best to accommodate your request.
^Please note that USPS tracking updates may often lag by up to 48 hours, and USPS in Chicago is known to often skip/miss initial package acceptance and tracking scans, thus your USPS.com tracking number may not show the progress of your Mail shipment for up to 2 business days after your order has physically been packaged, handed to, and accepted by USPS (the lack of tracking can sometimes persist even longer for 1st Class / international shipments). Lack of a USPS acceptance scan or outbound package scan is not uncommon and often does not indicate a delay or necessarily impact your estimated delivery time frame. If more reliable, up-to-date real-time tracking and on-time delivery are crucial, we strongly recommend using UPS instead of USPS.
If You Live inside the USA:
We offer you a number of different shipping options.
- USPS First Class: for packages that weigh 14oz or less. The average arrival time is up to 5 – 15 business days with delivery confirmation. Tracking is quite spotty, and arrival time is highly variable and is NOT guaranteed.
- USPS Priority Mail: for most packages. The average arrival time is 2 – 5 business days with delivery confirmation and tracking. The estimated 2 – 5 day transit time is NOT guaranteed and is only achieved about 80% of the time.
- USPS Priority Mail Express: for packages that need to get to their destination quickly. The promised arrival time is within 48 business hours, with prioritized handling and good tracking. 1-2 day transit time is achieved at least 90% of the time. There is a shipping cost money-back guarantee for this shipping method in case of a delayed shipment.
- UPS: for packages that come in brown trucks during weekdays with excellent tracking. See the map below for average UPS Ground shipping times (note: may vary upwards by a day). UPS Next Day and 2nd Day Air have a 95+% reliable arrival date and a money-back guarantee in the case of delayed shipment.
- UPS SurePost: Average arrival time is 3-8 business days; roughly equivalent to typical UPS Ground timeframes + an extra 2 days. These are tracked by UPS to a nearby Post Office and delivered by USPS. Arrival time is NOT guaranteed and is only a rough estimate due to the variability caused by handoff between two independent carriers.
If You Live outside the USA:
We ship things internationally using USPS, UPS, and DHL.
All customers ordering to non-US destinations are responsible for the tracking and clearance of their international packages.
We email tracking information for each order to your account-related email address, and you must track your international package daily to be prepared in the event of a customs clearance issue, duties owed, or other types of delivery issues. We highly recommend that you contact the Customs office of your country prior to placing your order with us, to ensure that the items that you have ordered are approved by your Customs officials for import into your country without special documentation.
In the event that your international shipment is undeliverable, denied for import by your customs agency, or otherwise refused and returned, we may refund your product cost; however, economics dictates that we cannot refund international shipping charges.
- USPS Int’l First Class: for packages that you don’t mind getting lost*. The average arrival time is 2 – 6 weeks with a Customs ID number. No tracking, NOT guaranteed.
- USPS Int’l Priority: for packages you need on time. The average arrival time is 10 – 20 days with a Customs ID number and tracking. NOT guaranteed.
- USPS Int’l Priority Express: for packages you need ASAP. The average arrival time is 3 – 10 business days with full tracking and priority. Guaranteed to certain countries.
- UPS Int’l Services: for special international packages, where the target arrival time is 2 – 6 business days with full tracking and highest reliability**.
- DHL Int’l Services: for special international packages, where the target arrival time is 2 – 6 business days with full tracking and highest reliability**.
NOTE: We do not guarantee the delivery of international shipments, and recommend that all International orders be placed for shipment directly to a verified International address with a working contact phone number and email, to reduce the chances of prolonged delay, loss, customs refusal, or return of your order.
International packages are often subject to additional fees for customs/duty charges. Customs/duty charges are not charged by our store – they are issued by your government. Please contact your Country’s customs department prior to ordering to confirm what import duties may be applicable to your order. The costs of international order shipments that are returned or refused due to nonpayment of customs duties, or the inability of the shipping courier to make contact with the purchaser/importer, are nonrefundable.
If you use an international mail forwarding service, we can only guarantee delivery to the U.S. address. We do not recommend using an international forwarding service to a country that we do not ship to directly on our site, as there is a high chance your package will be trapped in customs and rendered ineligible for a refund.
Can you ship to my country?
In general, the answer is yes, but with exceptions^. We ship many international packages each business day, and in general, we do not have problems with customs or legal restrictions. On occasion, if a product is not recognized by or is unfamiliar to the destination country’s Customs, it may be held for further inspection; this inspection process is normal and normally results in clearance within a week, but less commonly, in certain countries, the customs clearance process can be prolonged and can take as many as several months.
Can you refund the cost of a failed shipment to my country?
We try to stay abreast of customs regulations and laws in the countries to which we frequently ship, but ultimately the responsibility to determine the legality of purchasing, importing, and using our products in your country lies with you as the importer. This means that we cannot offer a refund of shipping costs for failed international shipments, particularly if it appears that the cause of the import failure is a problem with the customs policies or legal restrictions in the destination country or as a result of duties owed but not paid by the importer.
Can you alter the customs declaration of my order to help me clear my shipment / avoid duties?
This is a frequent request, but we unfortunately always have the same reply: Sorry, NO! We declare all order shipments accurately and with full descriptions and pricing as shown on our website. Falsifying customs declarations to avoid customs duties or make clearance easier is international mail fraud, and in the long run, it might prevent us from serving customers abroad, due to automatic customs refusals.
Customs duties and customs refusals are an unfortunate reality of life, necessitated by the differing import regulations and taxes applied by each country. If your order is subject to customs refusal, then we may either refund the portion of your payment associated with the cost of goods or reship your order, according to your preference – but shipping costs will not be refunded. If your order is subject to customs duties that should not have been applied due to a mistake we made on our customs declaration, we may refund the amount of the excess duties.
^ Unfortunately there are some countries we cannot ship to due to a high rate of customs rejection of our supplements.
* Choose USPS Int’l First Class and/or UPS Surepost International service at your own risk. These are economy services that may take up to six to eight weeks to arrive and are often not traceable/missing tracking. About 5%-10% of these packages get lost. The other 90%-95% arrive but with unpredictable delivery times in the range of weeks after dispatch. We cannot take responsibility for packages lost in the mail using these shipping methods, as these parcels are frequently untraceable /delayed or lost without any meaningful recourse.
** UPS and DHL charge a minimum $30 “brokerage fee” for having their in-house customs brokers clear packages through international customs. These services charge much more than national postal services for international shipping. Although costly, we offer higher reliability express courier shipping options since many destinations lack reliable local postal services, and because these premium international package couriers tend to be faster, more traceable, and more reliable than the Postal shipping alternatives.
