These terms are here to foster a smooth, easy relationship between the Little Red Tarot Shop and the many wonderful independent creators who fill our shelves!
Over the years I have spent curating and stocking this shop, I’ve noticed some common issues that arise regularly. This document is an attempt to define some simple and fair principles that work for everyone.
- ‘The Shop’ is the Little Red Tarot Shop
- ‘I/me’ is Beth Maiden (shop owner)
- ‘We’ means myself and Hele (shop assistant)
Sending a shipment? Shipping and packaging guidance is here! If at all possible, we would love to have our order shipped directly from the printer, saving cost, time and emissions. If not, please do read these guidelines thoroughly.
Payment
I expect to pay upfront when I place orders, and will cover the wholesale cost of the items, plus (normally) the shipping from you to me, and where neccessary the customs tax imposed by the UK government.
As I work primarily with small-scale creators, I don’t do ‘sale or return’ – I believe this is harmful to artists. When I order from you I (as the probably-larger entity of the two of us) am happy to take on the risk, and will never seek to return anything unsold, unless by prior arrangement.
When stock arrives damaged
Damaged stock is by far the biggest problem we encounter – it’s stressful, wasteful, time-consuming and expensive.
Let’s try to stop it happening! Please see our packaging guidance here for best-practice and tips.
Yet still – it happens. We have two options for handling damaged stock. We have come up with these after talking with creators and working to find the most fuss-free, non-wasteful solutions.
- The first option is straight-up replacements. You send replacement items as soon as possible. (Items must be marked zero value for customs, as we have already paid import taxes and duties and must not be charged again). The damaged items can be returned to you if you cover the cost.
- Simpler and cheaper for you: We’ll meet you half way – you refund 50% of the price paid (including a proportion of postage and tax/duties) for each damaged item.
We use our damaged stock creatively: We send them to Books Beyond Bars for distribution to queer prisoners, we donate them to healing justice projects, we use them for fundraisers, we have occasional pop-up shops selling them to lower income folks, and we do also do flash sales of marked-down goods for our newsletter subscribers.
When customers find that their items are faulty
Occasionally customers find a fault with their decks – such as missing, misprinted, or damaged cards (i.e. the kind of thing nobody would know about til the customer opens it!)
Here’s how we deal with it:
Our priority is ensuring the customer is sorted out quickly and with a minimum of fuss. Our reputation rests on good customer service and we want them to feel understood, cared for and served promptly, and to end up with a good feeling about both your creation and our shop!
If we have stock available, we will sort the customer ourselves using shop stock:
- If it is a single card or small number of cards we will open a brand new deck and send replacement cards to the customer. We will keep the open deck so as to help future customers with missing cards in the same way.
- If it is an entire deck we will send a replacement right away.
We will let you know about the issue and the cost of solving the issue. I am usually happy for this cost to be deducted from my next order, and for a replacement or free deck to be included with my next shipment – however if I am not placing a new order for a long time, I will ask for a straight-up refund of postage costs, and a replacement item.
If we don’t have stock available, I will forward the customer email to you and ask that you serve them directly.
Occasionally customers choose to reach out to creators before contacting us. If this happens – firstly, my apologies! We do ask our customers to come to us in the first instance. Please feel free to forward the customer email to us and we’ll sort it out together as above.
Kickstarter delays
Please communicate with us about any delays. We love to back new creators and their crowdfunding campaigns, it’s an important part of how the shop works and nurtures new creators! However, the process can become stressful if communication ceases.
If there are unexpected delays on your end, that’s okay – it happens (a lot!) We completely understand that the process may be delayed for all sorts of reasons and will not be worried or angry. We have seen many creators go through the often overwhelming process of a crowdfunding campaign and do not want to add to your stress – on the contrary, we would love to help make things easier if we can.
Simple communication is all we ask. Please be sure to keep in touch with the Shop and let us know of any delays and your new expected shipping date, if known. This is because our customers and community are very engaged and excited about new decks and we want to be able to answer them as clearly as we can. Thank you! <3
Relationships over transactions
We will never seek to compete with artists – on the contrary, we hope that in stocking your work here, that you will receive more interest and direct custom yourself. We will never knowingly price lower than your own retail price (in fact our prices are normally a fair bit higher due to the costs of importing, paying staff, etc.)
What we do ask is relationality – that we can get to know you a little, and introduce you, the awesome human behind the product, to our community. We’d love to feature you on our Creators page, and if you’re up for it, run an interview or feature on our blog.