Ordering from Anything Left-Handed

We have provided helpful products to left-handers all around the world for more than 35 years, including despatching more than 40,000 orders from our website over the past 3 years. Nearly half of our customers are outside the UK and last year we sent left-handed products to 117 different countries.

We have tried to make using our website as simple and quick as possible and the notes below give you a brief guide to getting information and placing your order using our web site and being sure that you are completely safe while doing so.

If you are ordering from outside the United Kingdom, click here for further information

Who am I ordering from / is it safe?

Anything Left-Handed Limited is a UK registered company that has been trading since 1968. It has been owned and run by the Milsom family for more than 25 years and we trade from our offices and warehouse in Surrey. See full company details

We can give you our guarantee that:

• Your personal and payment details are completely secure and safe and will not be given to ANYONE else for ANY reason.
• We will despatch your order promptly and make the whole process as simple for you as possible.
• You will be delighted with the items you purchase or we will refund your full purchase price PLUS all delivery and return charges BOTH WAYS, so it will not cost you anything to try our products for yourself.
• All orders over GB Pounds £30.00 are delivered FREE of charge worldwide. For orders below that, we have a fixed charge of £3.50 for anywhere in the world.

We have many thousands of satisfied customers all around the world and a lot of them have written to us to say how delighted they are with the products and our customer service. We want to make sure that YOU are added to that list.

The rest is just the small print to prove it!

What do others say about the company?

UK Online for business	Anything Left-Handed were the winners of the 2002 UK E-Commerce Awards (London Region, Micro Business category) DTI Awards website ALH information on the award
	Yahoo's human editors have reviewed our site and business and rate us as the NUMBER ONE web site worldwide for the term "left handed" and "left handed shop" and "left handed information"
	Google's automated robots and web ranking algorithms think the same" "left handed" and so do most other search engines and directories worldwide.
	Internet Magazine made us their Site of the Week
Features and articles	We have had hundreds of articles and features about our business and products included in newspapers, magazines, radio and TV shows all round the world and many hundreds of other websites link to us as the authority on left-handedness and left-handed products. Rather than us being selective, just type "Anything Left-Handed" into your favourite search engine and see for yourself.
What our customers say	It is easy to be selective with customer testimonials, but we DO get a lot of emails from people saying how happy they are with the products and how good our customer service is. You can see a selection of comments here

Our guarantee and returns policy

We know you will get real benefits from our products so we want you to try our left-handed items for yourself and see how good they are. We guarantee your satisfaction and that it will not cost you ANY money at all if you are not satisfied - the rest is just the small print!

All of our products come with a full 'no questions asked' guarantee for 30 days after the items are delivered to you. If you or the person you bought them for are not completely satisfied with your left-handed items for any reason whatsoever, just send us an email and we will refund the purchase price in full and arrange for return of the goods to us at our cost.

To avoid any misunderstanding, that means that we refund the cost of the goods AND the cost of the packing and postage charges AND we will pay the cost of returning the goods to us! We want you to give the products a good try, so the guarantee stands even if you have been using the products for a while. You cannot possibly lose by trying our products or buying them as a gift for someone else.

You do not have to tell us why you are returning the goods for a refund, although clearly we would like to know if you don't mind telling us so we can improve the products in future.

We really do not think there can be any guarantees simpler or better than this!

The legal stuff

Our guarantee significantly exceeds your legal rights, but we need to state them here for the record anyway...

• Under the UK Distance Selling Regulations you have a cooling-off period of 7 working days from the day after receipt of the goods in which you can cancel your order for any reason and you can do this by sending us an email to enquiries@anythingleft-handed.co.uk
• All monies paid by you to us relating to the cancelled order will be returned
• Where goods are being returned, they must be returned within a reasonable period of the cancellation
• Where a refund is required for a cancelled order, the payment will be made within 30 days of the cancellation

We cannot be held responsible for any third-party loss or consequential loss arising directly or indirectly from the use of our products.

If goods are in any way faulty we will replace them at our cost, including the postage of any faulty goods returned to us. This does not affect your statutory rights as a consumer.

How to use our web site

If you are just having a look around, you do not need to register. If you want us to remember you or to place an order, please click on "New visitor" or "Sign in" at the top of the page so you can set up your personal details.

Either way, we suggest that you join the free Left-handers Club so we can let you know more by email about left-handedness in general and inform you when we obtain new products or make special offers to members.

The menus down the left of the page show our product range organised into categories.

The tabs across the top of the site show menus of information pages about all aspects of left-handedness.

The search box at the top right allows you to find whatever you want directly.

The ordering process

This is a lot simpler and quicker to do than it is to write down!

Payment methods and security

We use HSBC Secure ePayments to process credit cards online and incorporating Verified by Visa and MasterCard® SecureCode™ for extra security. We can accept payment by any of the following cards:

We also accept payment using PayPal so you can use your PayPal account or pay using your credit card even if you do not have an account - This option allows you to pay with American Express or Discover cards as well.

If you would rather not pay with a credit card online, you can complete your order then advise us of your payment details separately.

Your Credit Card and personal details will be safe as we use HSBC Secure ePayments systems to authorise and process all card payments. When you get to the payment stage of our checkout process you will be transferred to the HSBC secure server to enter your card details and have payment confirmed. Transmission and processing are completed by HSBC and your credit card details are not seen or kept by Anything Left-Handed.

You can confirm the secure status of the HSBC payment server from the small padlock that appears at the bottom of your browser screen when it is active and by seeing that the URL of the website in your browser has changed from "http://..." to "https://...". You can double-click the padlock icon to verify the security registration. Depending on your browser settings, you may see a pop-up window informing you that your are entering or leaving a secure connection.

Some versions of browsers and some firewalls do not permit communication through secure servers. If you are unable to connect to a secure server or if you prefer not to pay online, simply phone, fax or post your order to us.

Anything Left-Handed, Sterling House, 18 Avenue Road, Belmont, surrey SM2 6JD, United Kingdom
email@ enquiries@anythingleft-handed.co.uk, phone +44 (0)20 8770 3722, Fax +44 (0)20 8715 1220

If ordering by post, you can also pay with a Sterling cheque drawn on a UK bank or UK postal orders.

Delivery times

We normally despatch orders on the working day after they are placed on the web and delivery is usually a maximum of 3 days for UK and Europe, 7 days United States and elsewhere. In practice, we get a lot of emails from customers who have been amazed how fast things got to the other side of the world.

Parcels do sometimes get held up by customs or local post offices so please allow a few extra days for delivery before contacting us.

Most of our parcels are too big to fit through a letterbox so if you are not there to accept your delivery it may be returned for collection at your local post office. You should get a card left to notify you of this but it is worth checking before contacting us.

Packing and delivery charges

We try to provide a fair service at a reasonable cost to all left-handers worldwide and to break-even overall on packing and delivery costs and charges to customers.

We are based in the United Kingdom but we want to treat all our customers all round the world equally. To keep things simple, we charge a fixed amount of UK Pounds £3.50 for delivery anywhere in the world (6.80 US Dollars, 5.20 Euros). All orders over UK Pounds £30.00 (58.50 US Dollars, 44.40 Euros) are sent free of charge worldwide.

The charge for your order will be shown on our checkout screen once you have chosen your delivery country. Don't forget that if your order is close to £30.00 you can still edit it at this stage to add another small item and avoid paying for delivery! - Just click the link in the basket page.

Our delivery charge is an averaged amount to cover the cost of our packing the order, the padded envelope or other packing materials and the postage cost. It may seem like a lot if you only order a single ruler, but it is very good value of you order heavy products like, books, knives or folders! It is even better value if you order more than £30.00 of left-handed items as delivery is then FREE.

Our charge of UK Pounds 3.50 compares favourably with other web businesses and avoids lots of complications:

• We could charge a fixed price and then so much extra per item, like Amazon, but often people order a number of small items like pens and sharpeners and this would give an unfairly high charge.
  
  
• If we charged by weight, we would be undercharging for items like writing mats that are light but very large
  
  
• The UK post office cnow charge not just by weight but by size and packet thickness as well which adds more complexity

Overall, we hope we have got the balance right and that the simplicity of a fixed charge is better than the other option of calculating individual order delivery charges based on weight of products and geographical location.

We are not able to calculate special reduced postage charges for individual orders that happen to be for lightweight items and we will not try to charge you extra if you only order heavy things!

Courier delivery

Some of our products are too large or too delicate to be sent by normal post. This includes

Computer keyboards
Golf clubs and sets
Guitars

These items are sent by Courier at an additional charge of £8.50 for delivery to UK mainland addresses only. If you order any of these items, please select "UK mainland Courier £8.50" as your delivery method in the checkout .

If you order any of these items and do not select the Courier delivery option, we will need to contact you to arrange the additional payment and that could delay despatch of your order.

If you would like any of these items delivered outside the UK, please contact us for a delivery price quote.

It is possible to select UK Mainland Courier Delivery for any of the items you order, but If speed of delivery is important to you, please note the following:

We download orders from our website at 7.30 am GMT each morning and items for courier delivery will be booked for collection later that day and delivery on the next working day bewteen 9.00 and 5.00. The couriers do not do Saturday delivery without a large additional charge. You will need to be at the delivery address to sign for the delivery or they will take it away and leave a contact card for you to re-book the delivery.

The table below shows when you can expect delivery of courier items:

If you need any item urgently for a special occasion, please contact us by phone to make sure there is no possiblity of any problem with delivery - call 020 8770 3722.

Out of stock items / backorders

We maintain a large stock of all our products in our warehouse and it is very rare for us to be out of stock. If there is a particularly unusual demand for a certain item or we have manufacturing problems we can normally re-stock very quickly.

If any item on your order is going to be out of stock for more than 2 days, we will email you to advise you how long it is likely to be and give you the following options:

1. Hold you whole order until the out of stock item is available
2. Send the rest of your items and then send a separate parcel when the out of stock item becomes available (we will pay for any additional postage costs incurred)
3. Cancel the out of stock item on your order, send the rest and reduce the charge
4. Cancel the whole order.

Duty and import regulations

If you are purchasing from outside the UK, you may be subject to import duties or other taxes levied by your customs authorities. You will be responsible for any additional charges as we have no control over these charges and cannot predict what they will be. Customs policies vary widely from country to country and you should contact your local customs office for further information. Additionally, you are considered the importer and must comply with all law and regulations of the country in which you are receiving the goods

Cancelling your order

You can cancel your order with us at any time up until it is despatched by advising us by email, telephone, fax or letter. However, you should be aware that we generally aim to despatch orders on the day after they are placed.

If you are not able to cancel before despatch, you can always try out the products anyway then return them under our money-back guarantee!

If goods are faulty in any way we will replace them at our cost, including the postage of any faulty goods returned to us.

Contacting us - questions, complaints and praise :)

If you have any questions regarding the products featured on our web site or any ordering or customer service issues, the best way to contact us is by email to:

enquiries@anythingleft-handed.co.uk

If your question is regarding an order, it would help if you could quote the order number from your confirmation email.

Alternatively, you can telephone us between 09.00 and 17.30 Monday to Friday UK time on
00 44 (0) 208 770 3722. Outside of those hours you can leave a message on our voicemail and we will respond as soon as possible. Normal phone charges will apply.

Our fax number is 00 44 (0)20 8715 1220 and it is on 24 hours a day every day.

We are very proud of our business and do our best to maintain the very highest standards at all times. We know that we may fall short sometimes, so if you have any complaints about our business, web site or products, we would love to hear from you so we can put them right as soon as possible!

Keith Milsom, Managing Director,
Anything Left-Handed Ltd,
18 Avenue Road, Belmont,
Surrey, SM2 6JD,
England

Telephone: 00 44 (0) 20 8770 3722
Fax: 00 44 (0) 20 8715 1220
Email: keith@anythingleft-handed.co.uk

We will deal with any complaints quickly, fairly and confidentially and make sure that you end up happy and we learn from any issues raised to improve our operations in future.

If you have any nice things to say about us, we like that as well :)

Privacy

We will only use your personal information to process your order and send you information you have requested. We do not pass on ANY personal details to ANYONE else for ANY reason whatsoever or do mailings or promotions on behalf of ANY other business..

You can browse our whole website without disclosing any personal data. If you want to join the Left-Handers Club, we only need your email address. To place an order we will need your address and payment details.

All screens and data transfers involving payment information are protected using SSL encryption.

We are registered with the UK Data Protection Registrar, number for 2003 Z597937X and you can see our entry here. This registration controls our collection, use, storage and security of all personal information recorded.

Use of your email address

When you place an order on our web site, we will send a confirmation email to the address you registered with. This will NOT contain your full payment details as email is not secure.

If you have ticked the "opt-in" box asking for information from us on new products and offers, we will send occasional emails when we have things that we think may be of interest.

If you have joined the free Left-Handers Club, we will send a welcome email and introductory newsletter, then further newsletters about one a month.

We definitely do NOT give, swap, rent or otherwise make our email lists available to ANY other business. Some unscrupulous businesses do select company email addresses from the web and use them as "from" addresses for their unwanted SPAM. If you receive any email that purports to be from us but is not a genuine communication related to left-handedness that you have requested from us, please forward it to
spamwatch@anythingleft-handed.co.uk and we will investigate as best we can.

Use of your mailing address

We will use your mailing address to send your order and will probably include one of our printed catalogues for you to look at.

As with email addresses, we will never lend, swap, rent or otherwise make you address available to ANYONE else.

Use of cookies

A "cookie" is a small text file that a Website puts on your local hard drive so that it can remember something about you at a later time. Our online ordering system uses a cookie to record a unique reference on your computer so that we can keep track of your order and retain the contents of your shopping basket.

Please note that we do not use cookies to store any of your personal or financial information on your computer

You can control the use of cookies on your computer and can turn them on or off at anytime (search for "cookies" in your web browser's help screen). If your system is set to disallow cookies, you will not be able to use our shopping cart system.

To change your settings, search for "cookies" in your browser's help screen.

In Internet Explorer 6
Tools / Internet Options / Privacy and move the slider to Medium
(you can always change it back after placing your order if you wish)

In Netscape 7
Open our site, then Tools / Cookie Manager / Allow cookies from this site

In Mozilla Firefox
Tools / Options / Privacy / Cookies then tick "Allow sites to set cookies"

Firewalls
Most firewall software also has cookie settings and you may need to change the setting to allow our site to set cookies - please look at the Help screens for your particular software for details

Paperwork

We will send an email confirmation of your full order details immediately after the order is placed. We will also send a printed invoice and a printed catalogue with the items you have ordered.

See our page of detailed terms and conditions for using our web site

Links back to previous sections