Shipping Information
***Shipping Schedule Change***
Thursday 6th August - We will be closed on this day. Orders placed after 12pm Wednesday will be shipped on Monday 10th August.
We dispatch live, which means the timing of your order matters more to us than it does for most online shops. Here is everything you need to know before you order.
Dispatch days and order cutoff
We dispatch on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Order before 12 noon on a dispatch day and yours goes out the same day. Anything later goes out on the next dispatch day.
We do not dispatch on Wednesdays, Fridays, weekends or bank holidays. That is deliberate. It means your order never sits in a courier depot over a weekend and turns up in poor condition.
Delivery options
Royal Mail Tracked 24, from £4.95
Our standard service for live foods, dry goods and liquid products. Most orders arrive the next working day after dispatch. Allow up to two working days if the network is running slow. Full tracking provided.
DPD Next Day, from £9.95
Specialist courier handling, arriving the working day after dispatch. Tracking by email and SMS. Worth it for larger orders, in warm weather, or when you need to know exactly which day your order lands.
Free delivery on orders over £65
Free delivery is available on all mainland UK orders over £65.
It uses the same next day service as paid delivery, so it travels just as fast once it leaves us. What it gives us is an extra working day to pack it. In a busy week your free delivery order may go out on the following dispatch day rather than the very next one.
If you need your order to arrive on a particular day, choose paid delivery and we will get it out on the next dispatch.
Free delivery is not available for the following postcodes: Scottish Highlands (AB, IV, KW, PH), Scottish Islands (HS, KA27-28, PA20-49, PA60-78, ZE), Northern Ireland (BT), Isle of Man (IM), Channel Islands (GY, JE), Scilly Isles (TR21-25), Isle of Wight (PO30-41) and London (SW). If you are in one of these areas, standard delivery charges apply at checkout.
Frozen orders
Frozen products may need a polystyrene insulated box to hold temperature in transit. Where that applies, a £4.95 packaging surcharge is added automatically at checkout.
Packaging
We use eco-friendly recycled packaging across the range. Live cultures go out in oxygenated packaging built to keep the animals viable for up to five days in transit under normal conditions.
That is deliberate headroom, not an expected journey time. Almost everything arrives the day after it leaves us. The packaging is specified for the bad day, not the normal one.
Extreme weather
Live marine food does not survive extreme temperatures in transit. During heatwaves or freezing conditions we may hold dispatch for a day or two and send on the next suitable day. We will always email you if that affects your order.
We would rather your copepods arrived alive a day late than dead on time.
Live arrival and DOA claims
We pack every order to arrive alive and in good condition. In the rare event something arrives dead, let us know on the day of delivery.
For physical damage, send a few clear photographs of the packaging or affected items. For live food a short video showing the culture is best, because a photo cannot show whether the animals are still active.
One important thing. Please take your photographs and video with everything still in the original, unopened packaging, exactly as it arrived. If you tip the culture into a larger container or your tank before filming, we have no way to see the condition it turned up in, and we cannot process the claim. So if something looks wrong, get in touch before you open or acclimatise it, and wait to hear back from us. Any replacement is agreed first, then we put it right.
Questions about your order
If you have any questions about dispatch timing, delivery to your area, or the condition of your order on arrival, get in touch directly. We monitor all messages personally.
Email: care@reefphyto.co.uk Phone: 01267 611533