FAQ

MERCH FAQ / JOYWAVE CORPORATE POLICY

Can I return/exchange an item?
All sales are final. In some instances, we can exchange things for a different size (within 14 days), but buyer will have to pay both return shipping and shipping for the new item. We would love to have a more flexible policy like Amazon, but currently they are at least two times larger than Joywave and are more equipped to absorb additional costs than us.

My order was lost/stolen, what do I do?
We ship everything via USPS. It seems like 99.9% of packages arrive without issue. We’ve just discovered we can offer insurance through a service called Route though. It’s a couple bucks per order and you can add it at checkout. We recommend it just in case. If you didn’t do that and your package is missing, you can file a claim with USPS at the link below, but options may be limited. Once the item has left our warehouse, there’s not a lot we can do unfortunately. If you have an issue though, reply to your order confirmation email and we’ll try to help. This is the sort of spot where I should probably say we are not responsible for missed deliveries, inaccurate shipping information (provided by you of course, we would never mess that up), USPS screw ups, etc.

https://www.usps.com/help/missing-mail.htm#

My order arrived damaged, what do I do?
Hopefully you insured your order at checkout. If you did not, you’re welcome to make a claim with USPS at the link below, but again, mileage may vary. Reply to your order confirmation email and send a photo of the damage and we can try to figure it out from there. Again - this is a Joywave run operation that sells Joywave merchandise. We’ll do our best to help but we can’t guarantee replacement if you didn’t purchase insurance on your order. You can also try what is known in therapy as “reframing”. For example, if you’re holding a badly damaged item in your hands, you might think “wow, my favorite band did a really bad job packing this order! How cool and unique!”. If that works, please let us know.

https://www.usps.com/help/claims.htm#

Why is shipping outside of the US so expensive?
Because it is! USPS offers the lowest international rates that we could find, so we ship through them. Our old merch company (who you may have noticed went out of business and did a terrible job) used a sketchy third party service for international. Was it cheaper? Yes. Did the packages arrive? Only sometimes. And they ignored customers when they didn’t. I’ve heard several horror stories. Should you pay $40 to get a record shipped? I wouldn’t. The only other reliable option for us currently would be to make our store USA only, which we don’t want to do.

What are these duties/tarrifs/taxes I owe?
We don’t know. There could be upwards of 10 other countries out there. No one can be sure. Each one has its own import rules. That’s why we’re just going to write “we are not responsible for any of that” right here on this website and offer you our moral support. We haven’t heard of any issues in our first few months of operation, but this is the sort of disclaimer one needs to have on their store FAQ just in case.

Are you going to go bankrupt?
Maybe, but not from running a merch store. We spent a long time figuring out how to do this ourselves. Really, the last merch company should have done the same. It’s not that hard. That said - we’re still learning as we go. Please be patient. We currently have one part time employee helping us.

Can I be mean on email?
Absolutely not. The world works best when people are nice. If you’re not nice, your email has a high likelihood of being “lost”. I’m happy to report that 3 months into our store though, 100% of emails have been nice. This is so much better than when I worked at Staples. Thank you.


-D, P, J