About Us

About the boxes
For many years I used to make and sell handcrafted wooden products at craft fairs and on websites such as runemaker.com, wooden-games.com, crafterweb.co.uk and celtic-craftwork.co.uk. Many of these products were supplied in decorated boxes such as you see here on this website.

In 2009 I started to wind down the woodwork side of my business for health reasons, but I had a few hundred undecorated boxes left over that I had made during the preceding months. The boxes for sale on this site are the remainder of that supply and are sold at about 5% above cost price. At present there are around 300 items in stock, but this will decrease over time as single boxes and batches are sold off.
 

Overseas orders
Please note that the prices and shipping arrangements shown on the product pages are applicable only to United Kingdom orders. Overseas shipping charges will be higher that those shown on the product page order forms. Please e-mail before placing an order.

Customers outside the European Community should also be aware that consignments will be subject to local customs examination and import duty.
 

Terms and Conditions
These terms and conditions are published here to comply with European Council Directive (97/7/EC)7, the Distance Selling Regulations (DSRs). They explain in plain English your rights as a consumer and my obligations to you as a supplier when you purchase products from this website, either online or by mail order.

In fact my trading policy far exceeds the basic requirements of the DSRs as you will discover by reading on and by browsing the rest of the website. But in order to comply with the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations of 2000 - the law which implements the European directive here in the UK - I am obliged to tell you about the rights and responsibilities applicable to both you as a consumer and me as a supplier, so here goes.

Identity
My name is Bob Oswald trading as Small-Boxes.co.uk. You can find out about the products from the main menu top left of every page of the website and about small-boxes.co.uk from the Contact Information page.

Description of Goods
The products offered for sale are described in detail in the products section of the website by using the main menu.

Price of Goods and Services
The prices of all products are given on the 5 product pages accessed through the main menu. There are no charges for taxes applicable to any products for sale on this website. The company is trading well below the VAT registration threshold and is therefore exempt from collection or payment of Value Added Tax. 

Delivery Costs
The costs of delivery in all cases are given on the 5 products pages.

Payments
Online payments can be made only through PayPal using a PayPal account, any kind of credit or debit card, by cheque, or by bank transfer to PayPal. For more information about PayPal's payment arrangements please see the PayPal website at www.paypal.co.uk. Details of how mail order payments can be made are given on the Mail Order Information page.

Full Address
Under the DSRs I have to tell you my full "geographic address". You can find that information on the Contact Information page.

Shipping and Delivery Arrangements
All orders will be shipped on the working day following receipt of payment and our message confirming your order. All shipping is performed by Royal Mail parcel post. Their Terms and Conditions can be viewed on the Royal Mail website at www.royalmail.com by clicking on the link "Terms and Conditions" which appears at the foot of their website home page.

Contract Completion
Your order and my acceptance of it is a "contract" under the law. The DSRs state that a contract reaches completion when the goods ordered are delivered.

the contract is deemed to start when you receive an email from Small-Boxes.co.uk confirming your order. The time limit agreed for completion of the contract is the Current Shipping Target effective at the time when the payment clearance takes place plus the Royal Mail target for delivery of the consignment. This is also stated on the confirmation email from Small-Boxes.co.uk which starts the contract.

As an example of this, supposing you place an order on the Tuesday 1st of July and receive a confirmation message from me on the Wednesday 2nd of July. The message gives the shipping target as the following working day and gives the Royal Mail delivery target as 3-5 days. Adding these together plus the non-working days Saturday and Sunday 5th and 6th July means that you should expect delivery on Thursday 5th July.

When you receive the confirmation email and read the Shipping Target and Delivery Target dates you have the option of accepting or cancelling the contract. Under the law you have 7 days to inform Small-Boxes.co.uk in writing that you wish to cancel the order. Now this is important:

IF YOU DO NOT CANCEL THE ORDER ON THE 8TH DAY AFTER
RECEIVING THE CONFIRMATION EMAIL FROM SMALL-BOXES.CO.UK,
THEN YOU HAVE AGREED TO THE CONTRACT COMPLETION DATE.

Please read the paragraph titled "Cancellation Rights" below for more information on this subject.

If you do cancel the order within 7 days of receiving the confirmation email you will receive a full refund of all amounts paid to Small-Boxes.co.uk. The refund will be processed by the same method by which you made the payment. For example if you posted a cheque, then you will get a cheque back. If you paid online using a PayPal account, you will get a credit to your PayPal account. If you paid online using a credit or debit card, you will get a credit to your card account.

The DSRs state that the statutory limit for contract completion is 30 days unless a longer period has been agreed. Small-Boxes.co.uk herewith stipulate that the contract completion date is the number of days or weeks specified in the Small-Boxes.co.uk order confirmation email as the shipping target plus the number of days specified as the delivery target beyond the date of the Small-Boxes.co.uk confirmation email.

If at any time before the agreed contract completion date (i.e. the target delivery date) Small-Boxes.co.uk find that they will be unable for any reason to meet the contract completion date you will be informed by email of a new contract completion (target delivery) date. Here again, you need to decide within 7 days of that further message whether or not the revised delivery date is agreeable. If you do not agree then you should cancel the order in writing and you will once again receive a full refund of all amounts paid as stated above. If you do agree, no action is required. If Small-Boxes.co.uk do not receive a message from you cancelling the order within 7 days then you will be deemed to have agreed to the revised delivery date and legally there will be no requirement for Small-Boxes.co.uk to refund your payment, only to fulfil the original order.

However, it has always been and will continue to be my policy that within the discretion of Small-Boxes.co.uk, a customer can cancel any order and receive a full refund up to 60 days after receiving a confirmation email from Small-Boxes.co.uk, provided the products ordered have not been shipped. This is over and above the requirements of the DSRs and does not form part of the completion contract. It is simply a "fair trading" policy.

If an order has been shipped within the agreed contract completion date (i.e. the target delivery date) but has not been delivered by Royal Mail, Small-Boxes.co.uk is still responsible for the value of the lost consignment. If you wish to cancel the order and receive a full refund then Small-Boxes.co.uk will cancel the order and refund your payments in full once the compensation claim to Royal Mail has been accepted by Royal Mail. This is usually 30 days after the consignment was shipped but may take longer depending on the administrative performance of Royal Mail.

If you prefer to have a replacement duplicate order sent, Small-Boxes.co.uk will re-send the products in a new consignment in replacement of the lost items. Once again, Small-Boxes.co.uk will ship the replacements once the compensation claim to Royal Mail has been accepted by Royal Mail although I don't usually wait until the compensation has been received as that can take weeks. Any such replacement consignment will constitute a new contract and will be subject to a new contract completion date (i.e. a new target delivery date) as described above for new contracts.

That sounds complicated, but in simple terms it means that Small-Boxes.co.uk will always refund payments in full or supply products ordered without any penalty to yourself, but it can take a while to get everything done. In the long term I will never ever make you pay anything for something that has not been supplied. That's a promise and a guarantee.

Insurance
Small-Boxes.co.uk are responsible for insuring any consignment shipped at no cost to yourself. You may pay for enhanced shipping services with better insurance arrangements by upgrading the shipping service when you place an order. But this would be an additional service purchased voluntarily. It would not be part of the contract or have any relevance to the agreed contract completion arrangements or refund requirements in the case of cancellation.

Cancellation Rights
You have the right to cancel any order without giving a reason up to 8 working days after you receive the contracted product(s). I would like to know the reason, but there is no legal requirement for you to provide one. You should advise Small-Boxes.co.uk in writing of your cancellation by email or letter. If emailing you should send your message with a "read receipt" requirement showing that the message has been received and read by Small-Boxes.co.uk and you should keep the read receipt as evidence. If posting a letter you should take it to the post office and get a Proof of Posting docket (form 302080) signed and stamped by the post office clerk as evidence that the letter has been sent. A phone call - while it might be useful - cannot be accepted as an instruction to cancel the order.

Returned Goods
Small-Boxes.co.uk require products to be returned with 30 days of your cancellation notice. This is a permitted additional provision allowed within the DSRs. Once the products have been returned you will receive a full refund of your payment(s) by the same method you used to make the original payments. The returned products must be in the same condition and in the original packaging in which they were shipped. There is no legal requirement for you to return the products unopened, but the packaging supplied is part of the contract and I do require you to return it all for recycling. That includes the outer bubble-padded envelope. If this original envelope has been lost or scrapped, then I'm afraid you will have to find another one of the same type to pack the returned products in. I don't mind if you re-use an old envelope, but it does need to be of the bubble-padded type. Please read the paragraph below about paying sufficient postage before returning any products for any reason. You also have a statutory duty under the DSRs to take reasonable care of the products while they are in your possession and to return them in a timely manner.

Small-Boxes.co.uk have a statutory right to receive compensation from you for the value of the products if they are not returned. In my interpretation of this ruling, it simply means that I will not normally process a refund until the products have been returned in good order. The value of any loss or damage from the original consignment shipped by Small-Boxes.co.uk may be deducted from any refund solely at the discretion of Small-Boxes.co.uk. You should also note that the price of the products and the basic shipping charge which is added to your order automatically during checkout or on the mail order form will be refunded, but shipping upgrades are purchased by you under a separate contract and will not be refunded.

You should make sure that you pay sufficient postage when returning a consignment for any reason. All products are more than 25mm thick and will require postage at the "parcel post" rate. Normal "letter rate", "large letter" and "packet post" stamps are not sufficient. Your are strongly advised to take the consignment to a post office to ensure the correct postage is paid and for your own benefit, to get a "Proof of Postage" certificate (form 302080). You must also put your return address on the back of the package.

Returned products with insufficient postage will not be delivered to Small-Boxes.co.uk. If there is a return address on the envelope it will be returned to you by Royal Mail undelivered and the consignment will be deemed not to have been shipped. If there is no return address on the envelope Royal Mail will be obliged to open the envelope to look for the address of the sender and return it. If they cannot find the address of the sender the consignment will be stored by Royal Mail for 7 days and then scrapped. If that happens then the consignment will also be deemed not to have been shipped.

In any case where a cancelled order is not returned to Small-Boxes.co.uk within 30 days of the cancellation notice, I reserve the right to withhold the cancellation refund until such time as the cancelled order has been returned in the condition stipulated above. This is a permitted additional provision allowed within the DSRs.

And Finally
I have simply picked the essential elements out of the DSRs here in order to comply with the statutory requirements of the Direct Selling Regulations which require me to make you aware of the responsibilities of Small-Boxes.co.uk and your rights under the law.

You may also wish to consult other UK legislation relating to the supply of goods and services. These include the Trade Descriptions Act of 1968, The Sale of Goods Act of 1979, the Supply of Goods and Services Act of 1982, the Consumer Protection Act of 1987, and the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations of 1999. You can get information about these and other relevant legislation from the Office of Fair Trading division of the DTI website at www.oft.gov.uk