HOUSE OF BONSAI'S FULL SHIPPING POLICY & PROCEDURES
ALL SALES ARE FINAL! BOTH IN PERSON AND ONLINE!
Please allow our shipping team 3 business days to fulfill your online order. If we run into any trouble, we will notify you by email or phone to discuss your options. With over 30 years of experience in the bonsai industry in the United States, please trust us to provide you with good quality products and services based on the existing general example images and descriptions in our product listings.
Chargebacks are not permitted once you agree to place an order or purchase because you understand the nature of the bonsai products and services provided during any order or purchase with House of Bonsai. As bonsai professionals, we work hard behind the scenes before the final products or services are completed and delivered to our customers. We honor our staff's skillful dedication, precious time, and energy by ensuring we are compensated appropriately so we may continue doing business with the general public through this fascinating global hobby of bonsai. After all, a piece of our small family-owned bonsai business will accompany you in becoming your new family member.
(!) If you still haven't received notifications that your online order is being taken care of after 3 business days of placing it, please call the store at 562-804-6888 during regular business hours from Monday through Saturday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. PST. (!)
Caution Before Purchasing Any Pre-Bonsai and/or Bonsai Trees:
Please understand that the actual tree that you receive may be different than the example images provided. This is due to a wide range of factors such as: time of year, seasonal variations, differences in trimming & styling on individuals, natural changes during growth over time, etc. Our staff members ARE NOT ABLE to always provide recent photos of any bonsai & pre-bonsai trees for you to pick from due to our limited staff size; even when a written and/or phone request is submitted. House of Bonsai is a high production-oriented bonsai specialty nursery so we don't have the means to constantly pull ourselves away from production to take more photos of our ever-changing pre-bonsai & bonsai trees. This policy ensures that we're able to maintain a huge selection of different species, shapes, and sizes at reasonable prices for the public.
Please Be Aware About Our Live Plant Shipping & Handling Policy:
Due to the fragile and perishable nature of live plants, we reserve orders to be fulfilled on the following Monday to try to have the shipping carrier (such as USPS, FedEx, UPS, etc.) deliver your order by the end of the same week that your order is shipped out. We carefully prep and pack your tree(s) so that it can better survive the transit journey to your preferred destination. Sometimes, the packages may sustain drops or get knocked around. We have over 20 years of shipping experience and use high-quality shipping materials. Due to the higher costs of using high-quality shipping materials and knowledgeable handling, our shipping rates are the actual cost to get your order into your hands. If you order multiple items, we will do our best to combine as many into the same shipping box. If there's any unused shipping money, we will gladly fit a helpful bonsai-related item into your package that's equivalent to the leftover money. If you want to avoid this kind of service and wish to receive a partial refund on the unused shipping money, please email us at houseofbonsai@gmail.com so that our staff knows to do so once the shipping label is created.
House of Bonsai mostly relies on USPS Priority Mail to ship our online orders to most US addresses to be received within 2-4 business days once dropped off at a USPS Post Office Branch. On occasion, we do use FedEx Ground and UPS Ground to ship orders.
Actual Shipping Cost May Vary:
Depending on your zip code and distance from our 5.3 acre bonsai nursery store in Lakewood, CA 90713 (within Southern California), there may be an additional shipping charge that we need to collect from you for us to finish the fulfillment if you live in “very far away from our store areas” such as: near the New England region, Hawai’i, Alaska, Puerto Rico, the US Territories, etc. Please understand that we have no control over the shipping rates since that is determined by the common carrier (such as USPS, FedEx, UPS, etc) at the time we create the insured shipping label. The shipping rates can vary at any time throughout the year due to a wide variety of factors such as changes in gasoline prices, weather challenges during transit, etc.
Once your order is shipped and leaves our store, House of Bonsai is NOT RESPONSIBLE for any transit-related issues, such as your order getting lost, stolen, damaged, etc, when it was in the physical possession of the shipping carrier (such as USPS, FedEx, UPS, DHL, etc). We have absolutely no control over how your order's parcels were handled while it was being moved from our store to your delivery location. All Ground-level shipping labels (such as USPS Ground Advantage, UPS Ground, and FedEx Ground) automatically have $100 insurance coverage for the merchandise's declared value inside the parcel. The same can be said for higher-level shipping label services such as USPS Priority Mail, FedEx Express, UPS 3-Day Select, and other similar expedited services. Even though we use high-quality packaging materials to protect your order, this does not guarantee that you'll receive the order in perfect, undamaged condition every time. For these "once-in-a-blue-moon mishaps," this is where that included insurance coverage comes into play for most orders. Even the top US shipping carriers acknowledge that sometimes things can go wrong during transit, such as the parcel getting dropped when loading into a truck or trailer or it getting stuck on the conveyor belt at a distribution hub so one side gets crushed or dented, etc.
All you need to do is promptly submit an insurance claim to receive compensation for the transit-related issues that occurred on your order. The sooner you can submit the claim after the completed delivery time, the higher the chances that the shipping carrier company may approve it. Depending on the order's total declared value, additional insurance may have been purchased when the shipping label was created to cover all of the items in your order's parcels. Please look at your order details carefully to determine if this is the case before submitting an insurance claim. For those who chose to purchase Route's Package Protection, the claim submission process is even more accessible and faster with them than doing it directly with the shipping carrier companies on your own.
If you do notice damage on your items upon opening, PLEASE DO NOT THROW AWAY ANYTHING, INCLUDING THE ENVELOPES OR BOXES AND INTERNAL PACKING MATERIALS! You must keep everything you received with your order so that it's readily available to take more photos as needed to process the claim. Depending on the circumstances, a claims representative may need be dispatched to visit your delivery location in person to inspect the received order and related materials to determine how they will process your claim on their end. House of Bonsai has no input or controlling factor regarding how the claim will be processed since this is solely done by the shipping carrier (such as USPS, FedEx, UPS, DHL, etc), and we have no control over their actions. But if you require assistance because they need the order sender's response, please make sure to include your Order # in your email correspondence with us at houseofbonsai@gmail.com, and we will gladly cooperate with the claim investigation. Until you receive a final response about your claim from the shipping carrier, please continue to save all the damaged items, original shipping envelopes or boxes, and packing materials used inside. Once the claim is closed, you are then good to go on disposing of everything.
If House of Bonsai is notified of an order issue within 48 hours of the successful delivery's completion, we can provide assistance in addition to our above-stated claim handling policy. However, for all deliveries past this initial 48-hour window, we will assume that "no news is good news" and that your order has been completed. All sales are final.
Please take a look at one of the estimated shipping transit days colored map images below to get an idea of when you may receive your order. Depending on the shipping carrier and time of year, your actual delivery completion timeframe may be vastly different than indicated here in these example map images.
If you're interested in adding Package Protection, please make sure to add Route before checkout. Route protects lost, stolen, or damaged packages on your order. It will appear as "1-Click Protect—Powered by Route" on your order. For more information on Route, please click here.
If you don't want Route, please make sure to remove it from your cart before placing the order at the end since our direct website store automatically puts it in there. It's more often a wanted service for peace of mind that there are options for possibly getting a fast replacement or refund for your order due to in-transit-related issues that were out of our control here at House of Bonsai.
(!) If you still have not received any notifications that your order is on its way to your destination address, please either call the bonsai nursery at 562-804-6888 during business hours from Monday through Saturday 8:00 am to 5:00 pm PST or send us an email with the title "Missing Online Order #" at houseofbonsai@gmail.com for us to check on its status. (!)
United States Postal Service (USPS) Estimated Priority Mail Shipping Transit Days Map
Federal Express (FedEx) Estimated Ground Shipping Shipping Transit Days Map
United Parcel Service (UPS) Estimated Ground Shipping Shipping Transit Days Map
Shipping & Handling Costs:
Please note that most of our products at House of Bonsai will have a flat rate shipping cost. This amount is disclosed in the product’s description. Because we deal with mostly live plants (that are considered both fragile & perishable) and fragile ceramic pots, we take great care to package them with protective materials. We use dense foam bricks and/or sheets on fragile products and brace the trees with bamboo sticks and wrap all tree pots in heavy duty plastic wrap to keep all the soil together and clean in the box. Because of this extra effort to safely protect your order during transit, the shipping and handling costs will be higher.
For some items (except for bonsai soil), House of Bonsai may be able to combine them into fewer boxes and be able to refund you a portion of the total shipping costs. Please email us with the title "Combine Shipping Cost on Order #" at houseofbonsai@gmail.com to see if we are able to do this for you. Please note that it is not a guarantee that we can combine all items together; depending on the item's size and fragility. All bonsai soils are packaged to fully fit into a USPS Priority Mail Flat Rate box. We are unable to squeeze them down any further than its listed box size in the bonsai soil's product description.
To avoid shipping & handling costs, you are able to do free in-store pickups on any order. Please make sure to select this option at the checkout screen to only be charged the cost of the product(s) and the sales tax. In Los Angeles County, California (where House of Bonsai is located), the local sales tax rate is 10.25%. To get an accurate quote for yourself, please take the product subtotal and multiply that by 1.1025 in a calculator to see the in-store checkout pricing. Our product prices listed online are the same as if you are physically shopping in-person at our bonsai nursery.
Details On Shipping Product Types:
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On Shipping Live Bonsai Trees: To try to decrease the shipping stress on our bonsai, we limit the shipping of trees to box them primarily on Monday through Wednesday. We are aiming to decrease the likelihood of your live bonsai tree sitting in a warehouse over the weekend and major holidays since most carriers do not operate on Saturdays and Sundays and are slowed down during major holidays. House of Bonsai reserves the right to delay the shipping of live bonsai trees due to extreme weather concerns to try to fit a better schedule closer to the start of a week to prevent it sitting in a warehouse or truck somewhere.
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On Shipping Non-Live Bonsai Trees: All non-live tree products (such as soil, tools, wire, fertilizer, supplies, etc) will be fulfilled within the usual 1-3 business days time frame and can be shipped on all normal business days.
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On Shipping Extra Heavy and/or Extra Large Items: (Such as Garden Bonsai Trees and Stone Lanterns) We can have a freight/LTL carrier to transport your order on a pallet. However, House of Bonsai is not responsible to book the truck driver to move the order. It will be up to the customer to find a carrier and email the trucking information to notify us. If there is no confirmation on what trucking company is coming to pick up the pallet order within 2 weeks of purchase, we will automatically cancel the order and refund the order amount minus a 20% restocking fee back to the customer.
International Shipping:
Due to United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) restrictions on shipping out live plant and tree products, we are not able to ship any of our bonsai trees to international customers outside of the United States of America and US Territories.
Due to frustrating international customs issues, unfortunately at this time, we are not shipping non-live plant and tree products (such as bonsai soil, tools, accessories, etc) internationally either.
However, we do have a desire to try to get into shipping non-live plant and tree products (such as bonsai soil, tools, accessories, etc) into Canada, Mexico and various Central & South American countries in the future. If we have any updates on this, we will post more info on the matter; both on our website’s home page and on our bulletin board in the Main Greenhouse at the bonsai nursery store.
HOUSE OF BONSAI’S RETURN POLICY
(!) ALL SALES ARE FINAL! SHIPPING COSTS ARE NOT REFUNDABLE! (!)
This is for all customers of House of Bonsai; whether physically in-store or online from our direct website (www.houseofbonsai.com) or from a different online store platform (such as eBay - https://www.ebay.com/usr/houseofbonsai).
(!) Only upon management approval will an order be returned. If approved, you will be refunded for the order amount minus a 20% restocking fee. The customer is responsible for paying for the return shipping to the bonsai nursery store located at 5214 Palo Verde Ave Lakewood, CA 90713. (!)
Once a completed order physically leaves the bonsai nursery to be dropped off at a shipping carrier location, we are unable to process any manager approved returns until the shipping carrier can deliver it back to the sender; meaning we have it in hand again. The returned merchandise will be inspected to be in same condition as it was packaged (i.e. brand new tools & supplies OR very healthy with high vigor bonsai trees) in order to receive the manager approved return amount.
In the extremely rare case that there are any signs on the merchandise that it has been used or tampered with (i.e. root filled soil, damaged from wear & tear on tools), you will not be issued a refund at all. If you wish to dispute our decision to reject the manager approved refund after the merchandise inspection, please note that we do all of our order shipping fulfilments and merchandise inspections in areas with security cameras rolling 24/7. We have video evidence to support our claims in the event that a fraud investigation is launched.
HOUSE OF BONSAI’S ORDER CHANGE & CANCELLATION POLICY
(!) If you need to make any changes to your order OR cancel an order, please call the bonsai nursery at 562-804-6888 during business hours from Monday through Saturday from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm PST. Emails about order changes and cancellations may not be fast enough! (!)
Once a completed order physically leaves the bonsai nursery to be dropped off at a shipping carrier's location, we are unable to make any order changes or process any order cancellations to the product(s) within the shipping box until the shipping carrier is able to deliver it back to the sender, meaning they deliver it back to us instead of your destination address.
(!) Please Note: If you wish to modify or cancel your order after it has been packed and before it ships out, a 20% restocking fee will be applied. This policy is in place to cover the costs associated with repackaging and restocking. (!)
If your order is still in the packing process, meaning we have not yet sealed the cardboard shipping box with the dense foam bricks or sheets, we can accommodate changes to your order without any fees. However, we will need the full updated order total amount before we can proceed. If your changes result in a lower total, we will refund the difference once your order is fulfilled.
If your order has yet to start packing, and you want to cancel the entire order, we can process a full refund. Once you receive the cancellation confirmation email, it proves it has already begun on our end. Please allow your financial institution some time to credit you back the cancellation amount. It typically takes 3-5 business days, but sometimes it may take as much as 7-10 business days. We will email you the cancellation confirmation using the email address listed on the original order. If it has been more than 5 business days since your cancellation confirmation, please contact your financial institution to see their typical timeline for crediting your account.