Returns and refunds, without the maze
Everything ships from China, which makes sending things back genuinely awkward. Rather than pretend otherwise, I have written down exactly what happens in each case, including the option where nothing goes back at all. Your legal rights are set out here in full and nothing on this page reduces them.
Faulty or damaged
Send a photograph. Nothing goes back, and you choose a replacement or a refund.
Changed your mind
Fourteen days to tell me, and two ways to settle it.
No restocking fee
Nothing is deducted for opening a box or unwrapping a stem.
If something is wrong with it
Damaged in transit, faulty, or not what you ordered: email me at hello@lifelikebloom.com with a photograph. That is the whole process.
You choose a replacement or a full refund, and the item does not have to go anywhere. I do not ask you to pay return postage to China for something that was my problem, and I do not ask you to prove anything beyond the photograph.
For UK orders, the Consumer Rights Act gives you thirty days from delivery to reject faulty goods for a full refund. For US orders, any consumer rights that apply to your purchase still stand. I would rather you told me sooner, but the law comes first.
If you have changed your mind
You have fourteen days from the day the order arrives to tell me you are cancelling. An email is enough — you do not need a form, a reason, or a reference number.
Once you have told me, there are two ways to settle it. The first is the straightforward return route. The second exists because posting a stem back to Shantou usually costs more than the stem is worth, and I would rather offer you something sensible than something technically correct.
Send it back
You return the items within fourteen days of telling me. When they arrive, or when you show me proof of postage, I refund the full price you paid for them plus the standard delivery you paid on the way out, within fourteen days.
Return postage is yours to cover, and the address is in China. As a rough guide, a small tracked return can be around £20–£40 from the UK, or around $22–$67 from the US, depending on the parcel’s weight and the service you choose. Larger parcels can cost more.
I will tell you the return postage cost before you send it, so you know what it will cost before you get to the Post Office. I would use a tracked service — if an untracked parcel goes missing on the way, neither of us can prove it was ever sent.
I am telling you this here rather than letting you find it out at the Post Office.
Keep it, and take 55% back
For UK items below £50, or US items below $70, you can keep what you ordered and I refund 55% of what you paid for it. Nothing is posted, nothing is tracked, and it is settled the same week.
This is an offer, not a rule. If you would rather have the full refund and are willing to post the item back, take the first route instead — the choice is yours and I will not argue for one over the other.
For most lower-priced items, the arithmetic decides it on its own. Getting 55% back without leaving the house can make more sense than paying to post the item back to China.
Higher-priced items
The keep-it option is not available for UK items of £50 and over, or US items of $70 and over. Those items have to come back if you are cancelling, on the terms in the first route above: full refund of the item price and your outbound delivery, with return postage paid by you.
The reason is plain arithmetic rather than policy. At those prices, refunding more than half the value on an item I never see again is not something this shop can absorb yet. If that changes, this paragraph changes with it.
How to start either one
Email hello@lifelikebloom.com with your order number and one line about what you want to do. There is no portal and no queue — it comes to me.
I will reply with the return address if you need it, or confirm the refund if you do not. If you need to return an item, I will also tell you the return postage cost before you send it, so you know the cost first. Refunds go back to the card or account you paid with; I cannot send them anywhere else.
Two things worth knowing
Items should come back in a condition you could reasonably have inspected them in. Unwrapping a stem, holding it up to the light and standing it in a vase to look at it is inspecting. Cutting the stem down or wiring it into an arrangement is not, and I may reduce the refund to reflect it.
If a parcel never arrives at all, that is not a return — it is covered on the delivery page, and you get a replacement or your money back without posting anything.