Happy New Year!

We’re changing our return policy, and I think most of you are going to like these changes.  Here are the policy changes starting in 2013.

• The 30 day return/exchange time limit has been increased to 60 days.
• The partial refund policy whereby we would take shipping out of your refund if your order falls under $99 is being eliminated.  If you qualified for free shipping initially, you get to keep it even if you return some of the items.
• We’re adding a time limit of 60 days for any claims of damage/defective merchandise.
• And finally, all policies will be enforced without exceptions.

Ok, so that’s all of it – pretty straight forward.  But in case you’re interested, here’s why we’re making these changes.

Over the last few years, I’ve made note of what’s working and what’s not working.  In particular, it’s important to me to have policies that are fair to everyone and equally applied.  I.e. I don’t like some people getting “exceptions” while others have to follow the policy to the letter.

So to start with, we’ve had a lot of issues with the 30 day returns.  Shipments to Europe and Australia often take 2 weeks getting there and another 2 weeks getting back, making it virtually impossible to adhere to the 30 day rule.  We’ve also had people go on vacation, get sick or any number of other things that prevent getting products back to us within a month.  The shorter timeframe is easier on our accounting system, but alas, if we have to give so many people exceptions, then the policy is not working.  So HURRAY! you now have 60 days from the original order date to get your returns back into our hands.  Please make sure you account for shipping times as we will absolutely not give refunds after 60 days.  The point is to make it doable and fair for everyone, so no exceptions.  This also eliminates the need for a holiday extension.

I originally instituted the partial refund policy to counter people “gaming” the system.  That is, buying something they knew they would return to save a few $ on shipping costs.  But the reality is, while that does happen, it’s very, very rare.  The majority of people legitimately want what they’ve purchased and occasionally something doesn’t fit or the color isn’t flattering.  And again, we’d find ourselves with exceptions.  If the order dropped from $99 to $50, the decision to charge shipping was clear, but what if dropped from $125 to $93.  Should will still charge someone $8 shipping because one of 6 items didn’t fit??  We found ourselves not implementing the policy as often as we did implement it.  So again, HURRAY! the policy is gone and we’re just going to eat that extra shipping cost.

Lastly, we had to do something about damages.  If something has a stain on it, of course we’ll replace it.  But we had folks calling – and I’m not exaggerating here – 6 months, 9 months, or even a year after they purchased something to tell us they just now washed it for the first time and it had a hole.  Even if they were being completely honest, by then it was usually too late for us to go back to the manufacturer and have them replace it.  Most of our manufacturer’s will replace damaged items for us, but not if we sold out of it a year ago or if the item has since been discontinued.  So we had to put a time limit on this.  Please check your items when you receive them.

These changes are to ensure that every customer knows exactly what our policies are and that they will be treated fairly, i.e. without worrying that others are somehow getting a better deal.  So no exceptions.  Of course, panties remain final sale and are still not returnable or exchangeable.

We’re also going to add some details of our return policy on the shopping cart page to ensure everyone sees it – and we’re adding several more links to the return policy to make it easier to find.  To see the full policy with the new changes, please visit the Returns Policy section on our Store Policies page.

Thank you and have a wonderful, healthy, happy, prosperous 2013!