Emerican Information Page

ONLY 1 in 6 CUSTOMERS COME CHECK THE INFORMATION PAGE
AND THIS IS WHERE I TELL YOU EVERYTHING

Do you accept charge cards. Visa. MasterCard. Discover Card ?
Do you have a shopping cart ?
How do you calculate the shipping charge ?

For buyers in the USA and in Canada... the preferred way of ordering and paying is by using the shopping cart. You can add your items to purchase to the shopping cart. When ready to "check out", the shopping cart will display your totals ... it will collect your shipping information ... it will go to the United States Postal Web Site and get your shipping charge ... and when (and only when), you ok the transaction ... the shopping card will submit your card card for approval and generate the order/invoice copies that will be emailed to you and to me.

Just like in any store, your shopping cart will follow you throughout the web store.
You can put items in your cart... take items out of your cart... check the contents of your cart.... you can even abandon your shopping cart and walk away.
When finished shopping, just click for 'Checkout'.
Even then, during checkout, you are not committed to making a purchase until you decide to submit your credit card information.

Don't worry, most of it is very easy to follow. Just take your time.
IF you have trouble or a problem that you can not get past... just email us and explain what you tried to do and what the problem was.
We will help you. We have done in the past and will continue in the future.
You know that is part of the point we stress of us not being employees of some big company.... we actually care about helping you. Isn't that nice for a change ?

Do you ship to any zip code ?
Do you ship to overseas Military addresses ?
Do you ship to Canada ?
Do you ship Overseas ?

Yes, we ship to any zip code ... including the APO military zip codes, including warships at sea.
Yes, we ship to Canada.
Orders to the USA and the APOs and to Canada are best ordered using the shopping cart and and the shopping cart credit card approval system.
Yes, we will and do gladly ship normal size orders to Overseas.
On very large, expensive Overseas orders, we reserve the right to not accept the order
in cases where we know nothing of the buyer and their credit card history.

Hmmm, I see that I can use the shopping cart to arrange payment.
and I see that I can communicate with you via email
but
you don't accept checks nor money orders
and
you don't give out your phone number...... WHY is that?

Actually simple. Dad is very ill. Dad is awaiting a possible heart transplant.
While we kids are in school during the day, Dad is minding our store.
That is exactly why the store is on the Internet, instead on in a building.
Dad doesn't get phone calls while he is vomiting.
Dad drives us to the post office and to the bank in the afternoons.
For the most part, the store is so well automated that we merely check that all is well
with it a few times during the day.
We will say that 97 out of 100 customers do just fine with shopping via the Internet
-- and anyone who has questions or needs advice or a solution has always
been able to get Dad or we kids on the email.
and OH, how does Dad get it all done so smoothly? -- two wonderful kids that are learning to operate the business after he is gone.

If using our shopping cart, then shipping is calculated by the shopping cart. The shopping cart links to the United States Postal Service web site to use their official rate charts.
The shopping cart will also allow shipment to and calculate shipping charges for orders to other countries.

We package according to the characteristics of what is ordered to ensure timely delivery.... therefore, small items that will fit and be protected within a padded envelope may be sent via First Class Delivery... while larger items requiring boxed protection may be sent via Priority Mail Delivery.
The United States Postal Service claims the same 2 to 3 day (average) delivery on BOTH
First Class Packages and on Priority Boxes.

We do NOT offer shipping via United Parcel Post nor by Federal Express.
Their rates are high and their delivery areas are not universal.

No, do not expect a tracking number on the low price paid for postal service.
Tracking is a sales device of the private services, who (compare prices)
charge more for delivery than does the United States Postal Service.
and...
consider that tracking does not get that package into your hands one single second
sooner than does non-tracking. It is simply a very successful marketing ploy for
people who worry oh when is my package arriving. Tracking, it's a placebo and
honestly, no one recieved a package delivered to their door one minute faster because
tracking was available.

We are only a mile from our small town post office. And the postal service picks up in our town about 3:30pm for delivery to the big city facility daily.
We deliver to the post office at least 2 times weekly.. sometimes as often as 5 times weekly. Delays usually occur when we are out of stock on an item .... then we will pick up a supply from a local supply house that we have exchange agreements with.

So it varies. We have shipped out orders in less than an hour.... others within the day.... but the majority go out within 48 hours. Perhaps 5% take 4 days to get into the postal system.
If you have an urgent need, please indicate it in the 'message section' of the order form.

There are 3 common errors that can cause problems.

One is typing in your email address incorrectly... the shopping cart and we also, use your email address to send you the invoice, the sales receipt and other communications about your order and your shipment.

Another is typing in your 'ship to' address incorrectly... the postal service simply attempts to deliver your package to the address that you provided.

A third concerns apartments... your local postal carrier may not leave your package at your door... know how your local postal carrier handles deliveries.

SPECIAL CONCERN: WRONG ZIP CODE.
Give us the wrong zip code and I assure you from experience that the Post Office
will not know the whereabouts of your package for about 6 weeks.

With most items this will not be a problem.
For discontinued polishes, we maintain an inventory count on that page, but we still
recommend that you email us first to check we have an old color in stock.
For items for which we have a Limited Quantity On Hand... we usually include a recent inventory on that items page.
If in doubt, you can always email us an inquiry prior to placing your order.

Backorders. If we can obtain the item within a reasonable time... say 2 to 4 days,
we will just hold your entire order and ship everything together.
If we cannot handle this in a reasonable time, we will remove the charge for any out of stock item from your credit card bill at the time will submit the bill for payment to your credit card bank only for the items we actually shipped in your package.

We make every effort to have the merchandise that is on the web store pages. Sometimes that cannot be guaranteed.
Customer A might order our last item at 10am.... We might alter the store page to show that the item is sold out and reload the page by 2pm.
Customer B might order the same item at 1pm before the store page has been changed.

Also keep in mind how the Internet and your Browser functions.
Are you looking at my store page fresh copy from the Internet...
OR are you looking at my store page an old copy from your Browsers history file and save area on your own personal computer.
Refresh and purge your browser save/cache areas (and may need to re-boot your PC) so your browser must go out onto the Internet and obtain the latest copies of web pages.

Usually it is an item that we have a limited supply of on our shelves.... so if you wanted
to say order 48 of them, it would be best to email us first to confirm that we have enough
on hand.
Also it can indicate that the item is a product that we may not be able to re-order ourselves once we run out of our current stock. Example: we obtain many of our best buys from our contacts in supply. Someone I know may tell me hey, I just shipped out 25,000 of this item to Walmart for 40¢ each... and there are a couple of cases of them still sitting here... would you want those at 90¢ each? So, I know Walmart will sell them for 2.49 each and I can sell them for only 1.49 each and beat the pants off Walmart so I say yes I want them. BUT, I will probably not be able to get more of them when I run out of them. Or, will have to pay quite a bit more the next time I purchase some of them.

Failure to deliver is the most common fraud on the Internet.
That's usually when they offer a price on something 'too good to be true' and loads of people quickly place orders and they keep the money, don't ship to anyone cause they never had it to ship in the first place, and take the money and run.
Credit card theft or identity theft is a problem for us...more than it is for you. We recently 'ate' $ 250 worth of merchandise mailed to London... oh she hadn't reported her credit card missing because it was due to expired that month anyway... duh.

The chances of someone gaining access to your credit card information over the Internet is just about the same as the chances of them getting it when you use your credit card at the local neighborhood store. Statistics bear this out.

We do our own web store programming (our Dad has a college degree and 20 years experience in computer programming) and the mechanics of the server hosting and the shopping cart and the credit card processing are sub-contracted out to the oldest, largest, and best E-Commence providers..... GoEmerchant.Com and Authorize.Net. Dads business background and our families credit history were checked by the service providers of Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and our E-Commence merchant bank.

Our prices are a mixture of retail and discount and warehouse.
First, we consider what our products or similar products sell for at stores such as Target and CVS and WalMart... then we price ours lower.
A very few of our items are priced at retail...
the vast majority or our items are priced at discount.

We also feature monthly sale items. Look for the hippos pictures near sale items.

We do not guarantee your satisfaction.
We do guarantee our responsibility.
That is, we take responsibility for what we should do correctly...and, you take responsibility for what you should do correctly.

Merchandise can be returned if we made an error.
Example: You order Misa #3 First Kiss ... it is our responsibility to correctly ship to you a bottle of Misa #3 First Kiss. Thus far in over 3000 shipments, we made 1 error in filling an order and in that instance we just told the customer to keep the incorrect item and we quickly sent the correct item.
Now.. if we sent you exactly the item that you ordered, and you simply just decide to change your mind ... that is not our responsibility.

On breakage: our advice is not to be concerned. Our method of packing has worked
extremely well thus far; our record is one broken item out of over 4,000 shipments.

On lost shipments: thus far in over 4000 shipments 1 was lost for 7 days and was finally located when we insisted that the customer go check at their local post office and there it was.

On misplaced shipments: The way to misplace your shipment is the give me
the wrong zip code --- sure way to have the postal service misplace your package
for about 6 weeks.

What is your Email address ?
Where are you located ?
Who are you guys ? .... anyway ?
Can I telephone you ?
Can I FAX you ?

We are a wife/husband/2child team in the beauty business. Our home is near the East Coast in the rural countryside along Hwy74 East on the way to the coast.. Our time zone is EST. During the day the wife operates the salon, the kids are in school, and Dad is minding the web store. Come evening we are packaging the shipments for the web store. We use the products that we sell and have full confidence in the products offered on the web store.

Our little web store is now in its 4th year of business and we have shipped
our products to about 6000+ happy customers (and 4 or 5 crabby customers LOL). Seriously, we are striving to offer an ever increasing number of superior professional grade beauty products... to offer them at reasonable prices... to package and ship them quickly and to respond to any comments, problems, or requests from our customers.

We are not a big business and we don't behave like a big business.... fact is we believe that we do a better job than a big business would. We began with hardly any customers at all in the first 4 months... but have been doing very well since. We hope that is because people are spreading the word about being satisfied with the products, the prices, the service that they encountered at our store.

You can use the email
that is just a bit further down on this page to contact us.

We normally do NOT conduct business via telephone or via fax.
The point of this store being on the Internet is that we can operate it outside of
regular daytime hours. The main reason for our choosing the Internet has been
the physical limit of Dads illness, as explained previously/

But, you say, you want to phone us.... where is your phone number ?
Hey, we probably won't be at home
and if you have read above, chances are the wife is at the salon, the children are in school and I am sick as a dog from the chemo.....
but email us your phone and time when you can take a call
and we will phone you.

NOW, Don't do that for something that can be handled via email.
It should be done for something that is actually unusual.

Have we done a good job on the information page?
Do you have suggestions for improvement ?
EMAIL ?

LISTEN - WE ARE NOT PERFECT
WE MAKE MISTAKES
We want to hear from you!
Comments, suggestions, complaints.
Problems with the store ?

If you have a problem,
we can't fix it
if you don't tell us.

SO WELCOME OUR INTERNET STORE ~ WINDOW SHOP US TODAY
THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING NEW OFFERED

110102 - 1100

030104 - 5471

080104 -   6424

090104-    6620
                 (196)

First off, we don't like for it to happen anymore than you do.
We do know that it can be annoying.
We will do everything possible
to get that merchandise to you ASAP.
.