Shipping & Delivery
Ara Āto delivers worldwide and offers complimentary express shipping. All parcels are shipped express from Shanghai and we use the following couriers (depending on your region): UPS Express, DHL Express, FedEx International Priority & Aramex. The average international delivery time from date of shipment is 3-7 business days (i.e. excluding the processing time & weekends/public holidays). Note: Delivery time can be longer depending on the local postal service of your country/town, busy seasons and/or delays caused by customs.
ORDER PROCESSING TIMES
We make every effort to ship each order out as soon as possible.
Please keep in mind when ordering that most of our pieces are made to order.
In stock pieces will be shipped out within 1-3 business days.
Made to order pieces generally ship out within 4-12 working days - dependent on the item and its construction time.
Orders placed before 12pm GMT begin processing on the same day. Orders placed after 12pm GMT, on weekends or public holidays will begin processing on the following business day.
TRACKING INFORMATION
As soon as your order has finished being made and has been posted, you will receive a shipment confirmation email + tracking code to the email address you entered at checkout with.
All parcels are shipped with tracking information.
Please allow 24-48 hours for tracking information to update/movement to become viewable. If you are based in a Gulf country, e.g. Kuwait, Qatar & Saudi Arabia, you will be able to view the first scan only when the parcel reaches your country/region. Signature upon delivery may be required on some parcels.
CUSTOMS FEES, DUTIES & TARIFFS
All international orders can be subject to the local taxes, duties, etc. levied by the destination country. The customer is responsible for payment of all duties and/or taxes imposed by the destination country for delivery. We are not held liable for any such fees which are imposed by your country’s customs regulations and/or any delays due to packages being held at customs.
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These fees are beyond our control, we do not set or calculate them and we are unable to provide any estimates as to if/how much you may be required to pay. These fees are determined by your local customs officials and will vary drastically depending on your country/government and their customs regulations and policies. We do not cover or refund the cost of these customs fees, duties and/or taxes that are regulated and issued by your government.
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You may not always be required to pay duties or import tax, but to avoid any surprises it is important that you make yourself aware of your country’s duties, the average custom fee charges, and any thresholds that may apply to international parcels, etc. We recommend contacting your local customs office or government for information regarding these costs and how they are calculated for further information.
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If the recipient refuses delivery of their order because they decide not to pay a customs charge, your package will be considered abandoned and disposed of by the shipping carrier and therefore your order will not be eligible for a refund.
LOST PACKAGES
If you believe your parcel is lost or stolen, please contact our customer service team at support@shop-araato.com and we will do our best to assist you. However, Ara Āto is not responsible for lost, misplaced or stolen packages. It is the responsibility of the customer to provide their correct shipping address and to track their package and monitor its status along the way. We are not responsible for packages that may become lost in transit or are misdelivered due to incorrect shipping information provided at the time of purchase/checkout.
VALID SHIPPING ADDRESSES
To prevent shipment issues and ensure that your parcel is delivered to you, please make sure that your address is entered correctly and includes all relevant information at the time of purchase. The use of correct abbreviations, street numbers, building or apartment numbers, and all necessary route information in English (if applicable) are critical to ensuring safe and quick delivery.
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If you are from a country where English is not widely used on shipping labels and/or where it may lead to issues in delivery, please provide your address in the native language of the destination country (please note: this is only for customers in certain regions where the mail sorting system has issues translating/interpreting/delivering addresses in English).
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Some countries have unique shipping regulations that are necessary to meet to ensure that the shipment reaches the customer. Failing to meet these regulations can result in the shipment being delayed, returned or destroyed. Customers from certain countries, such as Brazil, Italy, South Korea and Turkey, should also include their Customs Code/Tax ID number (i.e. CPF/CNPJ, CF/PEC, PCCC and T.C. Kimlik No. etc. respectively) for customs if necessary. This is because the customs regulations in such countries state that this information is required on the shipping labels/customs declaration of international shipments coming into the country. If applicable to you, please insert this into the field labelled "Additional Information Required" and/or the "Company" field during the checkout process.
We will unfortunately cancel all orders placed from the aforementioned countries that are without the tax ID number/customs code, this is because such shipments will likely experience severe custom delays and our parcels (as mentioned earlier) may be rejected, returned or destroyed by customs.
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Customers from several regions, such as Dubai, may find it best to use their P.O box address if they know that this is the preferred shipping address for the mail sorting system in their region/country.
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We do not make changes to the shipping address and will only ship to the exact shipping address you provided at the time of purchase/checkout. Please contact us immediately if you realise after placing an order that you’ve given us an invalid or incorrect shipping address at support@shop-araato.com. We will cancel the original order so that you can place a new order with the correct shipping details.
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Please note that once an order ships and is in transit, it is not possible to cancel the order
For any further general queries about our shipping & delivery, please do not hesitate to contact us at info@shop-araato.com