Shipping and Packaging
Natural Abode will endeavour to get your purchase to you as quickly as possible. Please expect any items marked as IN STOCK to arrive within 2-10 working days.
If a product is on order, out of stock or special order we endeavour to be as accurate as possible in availability time frames listed on each product. Some products, if out of stock, we can have in 2-3 days, others may take longer. We will always contact you to let you know what is happenning with you order. Customers have the right to cancel their order at anytime prior to delivery, except for special and customised orders.
Please note: While we try to be as accurate as possible with the time frame for products on order, we cannot be responsible for a supplier being out of stock, the product/s being on back order or being discontinued by the supplier. We cannot guarantee supply of out of stock items, but we will always happily refund your money or find you a replacement product should a product be unavailable.
Shipping Methods
Natural Abode use Australia Post, drop shipping direct from supplier, third party freight services and where possible personal delivery by our staff.
Australia Post*- We use Australia Post's shipping by weight system, calculated at the time of checkout. Australia Post do not ship items over 20kg and certain sizes. If your order is not able to be shipped by Australia Post we will contact you ASAP to discuss other arrangements.
*Australia Post is undertaking a carbon-based LCA of their entire operations. They are looking at the greenhouse gas emissions produced from all of their products and processes including their retail stores, fleet, mail processing centres, mailroom services, products and administration.
Australia Post environmental policies can be found here.
The customer has the right to cancel their order and receive a full refund if shipping charges are more than quoted on our webstore.
Natural Abode have the right to charge for costs incurred in shipping of the item. We do not charge packing and/or handling fees, we only charge our customers the direct shipping cost that we incur.
Drop Shipping - Where it is more efficient and logical to have product shipped directly from the manufacturer/distributor to the end consumer we will make these arrangements. We feel this is a more environmentally responsible option and also saves on the end cost to the consumer.
Example: Customer is in country NSW, Natural Abode is in Melbourne and our supplier is in Sydney. Instead of having the product, especially larger items, shipped to us and then reshipped back to NSW to our customer we will endeavour to make arrangements with our supplier to ship the product directly from Sydney to country NSW.
We will do this with larger items where possible and when we feel we have adequate quality control measures in place with our supplier. We will charge our customer only the cost that is charged to us by our supplier.
Third Party Freight Companies - Natural Abode will use various freight companies to get the goods from us to you in the most cost efficient, timely and, where possible, carbon and energy efficient manner possible.
If you have a preffered freight provider please let us know when we contact you with a shipping quote. We will only charge you the cost directly incurred by us for freighting your goods.
Personal Delivery - Where practicable Natural Abode staff will deliver products directly to you if in local proximity. This saves you money, ensures the product is delivered quickly and in pristine condition and as a bonus we might get to meet you! We are located in South East Melbourne.
Packaging
We try to use all recycled, upcycled and biodegradable packaging wherever possible. We ask that our customers reuse or recycle all the packaging to reduce the environmental impact of shipping the products.
Below is a list of our most commonly used packaging materials:
Brown Paper Wrapping - This is 100% post consumer waste recycled paper that is upcycled from the production waste of envelopes. Basically it is the end of the roll that cannot be fed through machinery. We are lucky enough to get this waste and save it from being put straight back into recycling before it has even been used! Maybe you could reuse it yourself or give it to the kids for art projects! Either way, make sure it ends up in the recycling - safe to compost.
Shredded paper - Waste paper we collect and shred. We get this from friends, local businesses and a little from our own office (but we really don't have that much!) This is paper that would have gone into recycling, so we're just giving it another life before it's broken down to be reused again. We would appreciate it if you could reuse it as packing material or recycle it. (We don't recommend composting as it comes from various sources we cannot know what inks have been used and it may contaminate your soil)
Tapes - All tape we use for packaging is biodegradable. We use brown paper tape and cellulose based clear tape. The only reason you will see any plastic tapes on our packaging is if it has been reused from a package we received.
Boxes - Most of our boxes are ones we save and also collect from other local businesses. But from time to time we run out or simply don't have the right shape or size. We use Australia Post Postpak which has a minimum 66% recycled content. You wouldn't think so, but it is very hard to find a new cardboard box made from high recycled content. Most just have some inbetween the outer layers accounting for only around 30% of the overall product.
Other - If you receive your product packaged in anything other than the materials listed above it is packaging we are reusing. We often receive products wrapped in bubble wrap (some biodegradable, some not), aircell bags and many other materials. Unless they are unusable we always save these and reuse them. We also collect rolls from wrapping paper and printers rolls to use as cylinders.
Product Packaging- The packaging a product arrives to us in for resale is almost completely out of our control. Unfortunately many manufacturers still use non recycled and plastic packaging around their products. To have any real influence on the decisions that are made by larger manufacturers we would need to be a large volume buyer. We do comment, leave feedback and suggest alternatives to current packaging, but in the end it is up to the manufacturers and suppliers to make the final decision. We are lucky enough to have products from many small Australian producers who do put great consideration into the way their products are packaged, we can only hope and push for all others to follow suit.
