Shipping Information
Our shipping costs vary depending on the weight of your order, the size of your shipping carton, and the shipping destination. Most items are shipped from our central location in Illinois. However, a few items are drop-shipped from manufacturer-partners in various states.
Items ordered through our website normally ship within 1 to 2 business days. Most orders are shipped the same day, provided we receive your order by 12N CST. Notable exceptions are items that require customization—such as Wingdow’s Unipod, Quadripod, and Wingdow® Gym playstands. These may take a week or more to ship, depending on the degree of customization. In this case, we will contact you and give you an estimated ship date. Your card or PayPal account will not be charged until we are ready to ship your order.
Except in the case of special promotions, we do not offer free shipping. We know customers love free shipping—but, in truth, it’s not free at all. Someone has to pay for “free shipping”—and all manufacturers really do is factor the shipping cost into the product price. It’s also not particularly fair. It costs a lot less to ship to a customer living close to the manufacturer’s distribution center (in Wingdow’s case, Illinois) than a customer located far away. Yet, the blanket amount added to the product price to cover “free shipping” is usually the cost to ship to the farthest location—so everyone ends up paying the maximum amount. In essence, “free shipping” makes shipping a profit center for the manufacturer instead of a perk for the customer. At Wingdow®, we believe it is much fairer to our customers to offer our products at a fair price—and charge customers exactly what the shipping companies charge us.
The shipping options shown on the order page of our website are the most efficient--and economical--methods we have found for shipping your order to your particular zip code. Except for very heavy or oversize items, you will normally have a choice of FedEx (FedEx Ground or FedEx SmartPost®) or US Postal Service (USPS Priority Mail or USPS Parcel Select) for orders shipped within the Continental US. In most cases, FedEx Ground and USPS Priority Mail will be the fastest way to ship your package. However, for some zip codes, FedEx SmartPost® and USPS Parcel Select (formerly known as Parcel Post) may be a more economical choice--especially if the shipping carton is fairly large.
If you choose FedEx SmartPost® or USPS Parcel Select, keep in mind that delivery times may run a bit longer than FedEx Ground and USPS Priority Mail deliveries, and delivery dates are not guaranteed. Most SmartPost® and Parcel Select packages arrive within a few days; however, some can take up to a week to 10 days to reach you--especially if you live in a rural area. By contrast, FedEx Ground and USPS Priority Mail packages will take at most 2 to 4 business days. FedEx SmartPost® and USPS Parcel Select packages are also a bit harder than FedEx Ground and Priority Mail to track. With FedEx Ground and Priority Mail shipments, you will receive a tracking number from FedEx and USPS at the time of your shipment--and automatic status emails indicating when your order has been shipped and when it will be delivered. You will also be notified of any delays in delivery. With FedEx SmartPost® and USPS Parcel Select shipments, you will also be sent a tracking number at the time of shipment. However, we have found that the status updates on these services are less reliable. Also keep in mind that FedEx Ground packages cannot be sent to a P.O. Box address, so you must either give us a street address for FedEx deliveries or choose FedEx SmartPost®, USPS Priority Mail, or USPS Parcel Select shipping options.
For overnight and 2-Day express shipments, we use USPS Express Mail and USPS Priority Mail, respectively--since these services are considerably less expensive than FedEx Overnight/2-Day. For short distances, FedEx Ground and USPS Priority Mail will often get your package to you in the same amount of time as the overnight/2-Day delivery services--and at a far cheaper price. If we find this is the case, we will ship your overnight/2-Day package via FedEx Ground or USPS Priority Mail and charge you the lower shipping rate.
Be aware that items ordered Friday through Sunday may not ship until Monday or Tuesday (especially FedEx Ground orders). Please keep this in mind when requesting rush delivery service.
FedEx Ground service is not available to domestic locations outside the continental US--and regular FedEx express and saver services are cost-prohibitive--so we use FedEx SmartPost® and USPS Parcel Select to ship to Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Packages shipped via these methods usually take a week to 10 days to reach the customer--and may take as long as two weeks to remote regions--but they are by far the cheapest ways to ship to these locations. USPS Priority Mail is also an option if faster delivery and/or guaranteed delivery date is desired, but it considerably more expensive than either FedEx SmartPost® or USPS Parcel Select.
We use US Postal Service Priority Mail International to ship to Canada. Priority Mail is by far the cheapest way to ship to Canada--and it avoids expensive broker (border crossing) fees typically charged by FedEx and UPS. Packages shipped to Canada by this method usually take 6 to 10 business days to reach the customer, with a 3 day or less delivery time to close-in provinces like Ontario. Priority Mail packages can be tracked, and you will receive automatic updates online from the Post Office regarding the status of your shipment.
The US Postal Service has some restrictions on the size and weight of boxes that can be shipped to Canada, so for extra heavy or oversize boxes (such as those required for large playstands), we may have to use FedEx Ground Canada for those shipments. In those situations, you will see a shipping cost of $0.00--or "unable to calculate shipping costs" in the shipping line of your order page that indicates our website was unable to determine correct shipping costs for your order. If this happens, we will calculate the shipping costs after we have received your order, based on the item or items you have purchased and your location. We will then email you the shipping total and wait for your approval by email before shipping your order.
An important thing for Canadian customers to know is that you do not have to pay import duty on any Wingdow® products you order through our site. All Wingdow® products are 100% made in the USA---which means that they come into Canada duty-free through NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement). You still have to pay your normal Canadian sales, provincial, etc. taxes on our items (as you would on anything you buy in Canada)---but no import duty. For the few bird items on our site that ARE made outside the US, however, import duty still applies.
We ship worldwide. Packages being shipped out of the United States are usually shipped within 2 to 3 business days. Exceptions include Unipod playstands and other items that require customization--which may a week or more to ship. In this case, we will contact you and give you an estimated shipping date.
Whenever possible, we use US Postal Service Priority Mail International to ship to countries outside the US--because it is by far the least expensive way to ship internationally. However, many countries (primarily those outside the European Union) have tight restrictions on the size and weight of boxes that can be shipped through their postal facilities--which precludes the use of cost-efficient USPS Priority Mail International for larger size shipments. In these situations, we use the next cheapest option--which is FedEx Economy International. FedEx Economy International rates fluctuate weekly--which makes it difficult for us to show costs for this service on our site. If your international order requires shipping by this method, you will see a shipping cost of $0.00--or a message saying "unable to calculate shipping costs"--on your order page that indicates that our website was unable to determine the correct shipping costs for your order. If this happens, we will calculate the shipping costs after we have received your order, based on the item or items you have purchased and your location. We will then email you the shipping total and wait for your approval by email before shipping your order.
For international orders, Wingdow LLC takes no responsibility for taxes, tariffs, or duties that may be incurred. Your country’s customs office may assess an additional charge when your package arrives. Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing whether or not such charges will apply or the amount of those charges if they do apply. We recommend that you contact your local customs or import office for further information on what these charges may be before placing your order. We cannot make refunds to customers who do not receive their shipments because they have declined to pay these costs.
International shipping is not cheap--regardless of which shipping method is used. We much prefer that our overseas customers spend their limited funds on wonderful products for their birds than on shipping for those items--so we are always looking for ways for them to save shipping costs.
One suggestion we have is to check with other bird-loving friends about items they might want--and then consolidate those orders into one shipment. This works particularly well if the item of interest is Wingdow® Seat. Wingdows® nest--one inside the other--so we can ship 2 (or more) Wingdows® in the same box for pretty much the same cost as shipping a single unit.
If you are ordering items from other US-based websites (in addition to Wingdow.com), you might also want to consider using a shipping consolidator (also known as freight forwarder). Shipping consolidators provide customers with a single US address for all their shipping--and are able to offer customers volume discounts and better rates by consolidating several smaller shipments into one. If you are interested in shipping your Wingdow® purchases through a consolidator, we would be happy to work with you in finding an appropriate shipper for your needs.
As always, please feel free to contact us at any time with questions or concerns. It is our intention to make your shopping experience as pleasurable as possible.