How Shipping works at F-Stop:
Like many other small companies F-Stop uses a 3rd Party Logistics company (3PL) to handle our shipping. Our Warehouse is in St. Louis, Missouri and we ship via UPS (United Postal Service) and USPS (United States Postal Service). Many of our international orders are shipped via USPS, and while that offers a much cheaper shipping option, there is no guarantee by way of times, tracking updates or anything else with USPS.
Please note that UPS generally updates their tracking information within a few hours, but always within 12 hours. US Postal Service usually takes significantly longer, sometimes as long as 7-10 days.
How placing an online order works at F-Stop:
It begins with you placing an order on our online shopping cart. When you place an order, it automatically goes into our Shopping Cart / Inventory Manager / Support Management (we use a system called NetSuite, which handles everything). At this point your order has been recorded into our system, and your credit card has been authorized – we do not bill for orders until your order actually ships. A credit card authorization is the same thing that happens when you reserve a hotel, it just checks to see if you can actually pay for your order. You should automatically receive a copy of the Sales Order via email confirming the details of your order.
Assuming that the product you ordered is in stock, we will verify it within 48 hours and send it to shipping (we try to do this within a few hours, but it depends on how busy we are). This just means that we will check to make sure you have the correct shipping, the correct address – basically just making sure nothing looks wrong with your order. We then process your order and send it to shipping. At this point we create the pick slip, packing list and shipping label and send all that to our warehouse. At this point your order still has not shipped, but you will have the full tracking information. Our warehouse takes about 24hours to get an order out the door and on the way to you; they do try their best to keep things moving quickly, and we can often get packages out the same day, but there is no guarantee. If you do have an urgent rush shipment, please contact us – do not just place the order in the system and expect it will go out the same day.
Once your order has been sent to the warehouse, your order will be billed and you will automatically receive a copy of the Cash Sale including your tracking information via email.
- Please note that our warehouse is in Missouri and UPS ground is a 2 day ship to Colorado and most of the midwest. UPS Ground Map The Zip at the warehouse is 63115.
- If you are buying a large pack, such as a Tilopa or Satori, the box is 12” x 12” x 24” which works out to a dimensional weight of 18lbs for all air shipments. You can see more information about dimensional weight on the UPS & USPS websites.
- UPS charges a residential delivery fee, so if you have your pack delivered to your work instead of your house, you can usually save a few dollars on shipping. Please include the name of the business when using this as your ship to address - Home businesses do not qualify.
- Our shipping cut off time is 11am Central Standard Time. If you need something overnighted or expedited, you need to contact us before that.
