🔄 Returns, Refunds & Customer Conduct Policy

OnlineSikhStore Ltd – Trusted Sikh Store UK Since 2005

🙏 At OnlineSikhStore Ltd, we have been proudly serving the Sangat since 2005 with fairness, honesty and responsibility.

We accept genuine returns in accordance with the conditions below and applicable consumer law. At the same time, we reserve the right to protect our business, staff and customers from misuse, abuse, fraudulent returns or exploitation of our policies.

As a small Sikh business operating on modest margins, we work hard to keep our products affordable and accessible to the Sangat. Returns, exchanges, postage, customs charges, administration, inspection and restocking all add to operating costs, so we kindly ask customers to read this policy carefully before placing an order and to choose sizes and products with care.

Please read the following Returns, Refunds & Customer Conduct Policy carefully before placing your order.

📅 1. 30-Day Returns

Eligible products may be returned for refund or size exchange within 30 days from the date of sale, subject to the conditions below.

Before returning an item, please contact us for a Return Merchandise Authorisation (RMA).

Your RMA is normally your order number beginning with #.

Returns without sufficient order information may be delayed while we identify the purchase.

📸 2. Damaged, Incorrect, Missing or Faulty Items

Please inspect your order as soon as possible after delivery.

If you notice:

• Transit damage
• Missing item
• Incorrect product
• Incorrect quantity
• Manufacturing defect
• Dispatch or sizing error

Please contact us preferably within 48–72 hours of delivery.

Where possible, send clear photographs of:

📦 Packaging
🏷️ Shipping label
📷 Product
⚠️ Visible damage or issue

The 48–72 hour period helps us investigate courier and packing issues quickly. It does not remove your statutory rights regarding genuinely faulty, incorrect or misdescribed goods.

📍 3. Return Address

Please send authorised returns to:

OnlineSikhStore
33 Cloisterham Road
Rochester
Kent
ME1 2BW
United Kingdom

🚫 Please do not visit without a confirmed appointment.

📝 4. What to Include With Your Return

Please include a note with:

• Order number
• Full name
• Return address
• RMA/order number
• Reason for return
• Required replacement size, if exchanging

Please also:

✔ Write your return address on the outer parcel
✔ Pack the item securely
✔ Keep proof of posting
✔ Use correct postage for the parcel size and weight

✅ 5. Condition of Returned Items

Unless your statutory rights provide otherwise, returned items should be:

• Unused
• Unworn
• Unwashed
• In resalable condition
• In original packaging where reasonably possible
• With original tags intact
• Free from perfume, smoke, sweat, pet smells or contamination
• Free from stains, hair or customer-caused damage

Where an item has been handled significantly beyond what is reasonably necessary to inspect it, and its value has been reduced, a lawful deduction may be made for diminished value.

🚫 6. Items With Special Return Conditions

Certain products may have additional restrictions, including:

• Customised or personalised products
• Hygiene-sensitive products where a legal hygiene exception applies
• Digital media where the applicable legal exception applies
• Memory cards or software-containing products where legally exempt
• Products altered to customer specification

Other products, including books, radios, Paranda, Kaintha and similar items, remain subject to applicable consumer law and any additional conditions shown in their listings.

⭕ 7. Kara & Size Exchanges – UK

Every Kara is checked and measured before dispatch wherever practicable.

If the Kara supplied matches the size ordered but you need a different size, we are happy to arrange an exchange.

🔁 For a Size Swap

Please return the item being exchanged only.

🎁 You do not need to return complimentary gifts when you are only exchanging the size.

The buyer is normally responsible for:

• Returning the original item to us
• Postage for sending the replacement item back

✉️ Easiest UK Exchange Method

Please enclose a separate prepaid self-addressed envelope INSIDE your return parcel.

⚠️ Important:
This is not the envelope you use to send your return to us.

It must be an additional prepaid envelope placed inside the parcel, addressed to yourself, which we can use to send the replacement Kara back to you.

Alternatively, contact us for payment details and pay £3.50 towards replacement postage and packaging.

🎁 8. Complimentary Gifts – Exchange vs Refund

We often include complimentary products as a gesture of goodwill.

Sometimes the free gift may have a substantial retail value or may even be a Kara of similar value to the purchased item.

🔁 Size Exchange

For a straightforward size exchange:

✔ Return the item being exchanged
✔ Keep your complimentary gift

💷 Refund

For a refund:

✔ Return the purchased item
✔ Return original packaging where applicable
✔ Return all complimentary/free gifts supplied with the order

Where a complimentary gift is not returned, we reserve the right, where legally permitted, to deduct its reasonable value from a voluntary refund.

This prevents situations where a customer keeps a valuable complimentary item while returning the qualifying purchase for a full voluntary refund.

📮 9. Return Postage

Unless an item is genuinely faulty, incorrect or misdescribed, customers are normally responsible for the cost of returning unwanted items.

We do not routinely provide free return labels for:

• Change-of-mind returns
• Customer-selected size changes
• Colour swaps

Where we arrange a return label for a voluntary return, the actual label cost may be deducted where legally permitted and agreed.

📌 Please retain your proof of posting until the return is completed.

📦 10. Correct Return Postage

Please use sufficient postage based on:

• Parcel dimensions
• Thickness
• Weight
• Packaging type

⚠️ Padded envelopes may require Large Letter or Parcel postage, depending on their final dimensions and thickness.

Underpaid parcels may be delayed, surcharged or returned by the carrier.

Where we incur a postage-underpayment charge caused by insufficient return postage, the cost may be recovered where legally permitted.

🌍 11. International Returns

International customers should contact us before returning an item.

Please clearly mark the customs declaration:

RETURNED GOODS / RETURN TO SELLER

Please complete all customs information accurately.

Incorrect declarations can result in:

• Customs duty
• Import VAT
• Handling charges
• Courier fees
• Brokerage costs
• Delays

Where charges arise because the return was incorrectly declared, those costs may be deducted from a voluntary refund where legally permitted.

🇪🇺 12. Important Customs & Tariff Notice – From July 2026

International fulfilment costs have increased significantly.

From 1 July 2026, additional customs-duty requirements apply to certain low-value goods entering the European Union.

For affected shipments, we may pay costs including:

📮 Royal Mail/courier postage
💶 Customs tariffs or duty
📦 Carrier handling charges
🧾 Customs administration charges

The EU low-value customs duty may currently be approximately €3 per applicable item classification, which can appear to us as approximately £2.56 depending on the exchange rate.

Royal Mail or another carrier may also charge an additional handling fee, currently around £1 in some cases.

⚠️ These amounts can change.

They are paid to third parties and are not income retained by OnlineSikhStore Ltd.

In some cases, once the shipment has entered the destination country's customs system, these charges may not be refunded to us even if the customer later returns the product.

💷 13. Why International Refunds Can Be Expensive

A low-value international order can cost more to fulfil than customers realise.

Example

Product value: £4.99
Shipping paid by customer: £9.99
Total paid: £14.98

Possible actual costs to us:

📮 International postage: £9.50
💶 Customs tariff: approx. £2.56
📦 Handling fee: approx. £1.00

Total fulfilment cost: approx. £13.06

This means almost the entire amount received may already have been used for postage, customs and handling.

These costs are one of the main reasons international returns can create significant losses for small businesses.

💳 14. International Refund Deductions

Where a customer has a mandatory statutory cancellation right, the refund will be calculated according to the consumer law applicable to that transaction.

Where we accept an international return under our additional voluntary return policy, actual third-party costs already incurred and not recoverable by us may be excluded from the refund where legally permitted.

These may include:

• Outbound postage
• Customs tariffs
• Duties
• Carrier handling charges
• Customs administration fees
• Return import charges caused by incorrect declarations
• Other evidenced third-party carrier charges

✅ We will not apply arbitrary charges.

Any deduction under our voluntary policy will relate to costs actually incurred.

💰 15. Refund Calculations, Cancellations, Returns & Restocking Costs

Refunds and any applicable deductions depend upon the reason for the cancellation or return, the condition of the returned goods, costs already incurred and the applicable consumer rights and return conditions.

⚠️ Please Order & Make Payment Carefully

Please place an order and make payment only when you genuinely intend to complete the purchase.

Once payment is received, we may begin processing an order immediately. This can involve retrieving products from storage, travelling to storage facilities, picking and checking stock, preparing packaging, printing shipping documents, purchasing postage and updating or allocating stock across our various selling platforms.

Some of our products are held at separate storage facilities, and where urgent or prompt dispatch is requested, an additional journey may sometimes be made specifically to retrieve and dispatch that order.

Please therefore check product details, Kara sizes, measurements, quantities, delivery requirements, prices and any available discount or promotional codes before making payment.

Finding a different promotion, discount code, special offer or alternative price after placing an order does not mean that costs already incurred in processing or dispatching that order disappear.

🚫 Cancellation After Payment

If you wish to cancel an order, please contact us as quickly as possible.

Where an order has not yet entered processing or dispatch, we will always try to accommodate the cancellation.

However, our processing can begin shortly after payment. Once stock has been retrieved, an order processed or packed, postage purchased or the parcel dispatched, costs may already have been incurred and it may no longer be possible simply to stop the order.

Where legally permitted, cancellations or subsequent returns may be subject to applicable administration, restocking, diminished-value or other permitted deductions of up to 25%, depending upon the circumstances.

The up to 25% figure is a maximum and is not automatically deducted from every cancellation or return. We may reduce or waive a deduction depending upon the circumstances.

❌ Our Error / Faulty, Incorrect or Misdescribed Goods

Where an item is genuinely faulty, incorrect or materially misdescribed, the matter will be handled in accordance with applicable consumer law.

No restocking or administration fee will be applied where the customer is exercising a statutory right arising from an error or fault for which we are responsible.

📦 Restocking & Administration Costs – Up to 25%

For eligible change-of-mind, incorrectly selected size, unwanted-item and other non-fault returns, a reasonable restocking and administration deduction of up to 25% of the product value may apply, where legally permitted.

Returns and cancellations can create genuine costs for our business, including:

• Administration and return processing
• Inspection and condition checking
• Repackaging
• Relabelling
• Restocking
• Inventory adjustments
• Storage and stock handling
• Staff time
• Payment and order administration
• Marketplace and multi-channel administration
• Travel and movement of stock to or from storage facilities
• Preparing returned products for resale

Our products may be held at separate storage facilities, and fulfilling and subsequently processing a returned order can therefore involve additional handling, travel, staff time and administration.

The 25% figure is a maximum rather than an automatic charge. The amount applied, if any, will depend upon the circumstances of the individual cancellation or return and the extent permitted by applicable law.

⭕ Kara & Other Size-Related Returns

Please choose Kara sizes and other sized products carefully before ordering.

Kara measurements shown in our listings are based on the inner diameter. We strongly recommend measuring an existing well-fitting Kara before ordering rather than estimating or guessing a size.

Where the size supplied correctly matches the size ordered but the customer subsequently requires a different size, this is considered a customer-selected size change and not a sizing or dispatch error by OnlineSikhStore Ltd.

If you are uncertain about sizing, please contact us before placing your order. We are happy to assist with measurements and would much rather help you choose correctly than have you incur the inconvenience and possible costs associated with returning or exchanging an incorrectly selected size.

📦 Diminished Value / Used or Excessively Handled Goods

Customers may reasonably inspect eligible goods.

However, where goods have been handled beyond what is reasonably necessary to establish their nature, characteristics and functioning, and that handling has reduced their value, we reserve the right to make a lawful deduction reflecting the actual diminished value.

This may include, where applicable, products returned:

• Worn or clearly used
• Scratched, marked or damaged
• With missing or damaged packaging, tags, accessories or components
• With perfume, smoke, sweat, stains, hair or other contamination
• Creased, bent or otherwise altered
• With protective films or seals unnecessarily removed
• Requiring additional work before they can be resold
• In a condition preventing resale as new

Any diminished-value deduction will be assessed according to the condition and reduction in value of the particular product and applicable consumer law.

📮 Postage, Customs & Other Costs

Where legally permitted, a refund may also exclude or take account of actual costs incurred in connection with the transaction or return, including where applicable:

• Return postage or return-label costs paid by us
• Non-refundable customs tariffs or duties
• Carrier handling charges
• Customs administration charges
• Charges caused by an incorrectly declared international return
• Other evidenced third-party costs that are lawfully recoverable

Any statutory entitlement to reimbursement of standard outbound delivery charges will remain unaffected.

💳 16. Refund Method

The method of refund will depend upon the reason for the return and whether the return is being made under a statutory consumer right or under our additional voluntary return policy.

⚖️ Statutory Refunds

Where a customer is legally entitled to a monetary refund under applicable consumer law, the refund will normally be made to the original payment method, unless the customer expressly agrees to an alternative method.

We will not require a customer to accept store credit or an exchange instead of a monetary refund where they have a statutory right to that refund.

🎁 Additional Voluntary / Goodwill Returns

Where the applicable statutory cancellation period has expired and OnlineSikhStore Ltd agrees to accept a return under our additional voluntary 30-day return policy, the return is accepted subject to the conditions of that voluntary policy.

Depending upon the circumstances, we may offer one or more of the following:

• Store credit

• Exchange or replacement product

• Refund to the original payment method, subject to any applicable and legally permitted deductions under our voluntary return policy

For returns accepted solely under our additional voluntary return policy, store credit or exchange may be offered instead of a monetary refund, where legally permitted.

Any store credit issued will normally be for use towards a future purchase from OnlineSikhStore Ltd and will be subject to any terms communicated when the credit is issued.

⏱️ 17. Processing Times

Once the return arrives, we aim to inspect and process straightforward refunds or exchanges:

✅ Same day wherever possible

Please allow up to 24–48 working hours during busy periods.

Weekend and public-holiday returns may be processed on the next working day.

🔨 18. Natural & Handmade Product Characteristics

Products including:

• Sarbloh Karas
• Pure Iron items
• Handmade wooden products
• Hand-finished religious and cultural items

may naturally show:

• Minor grind marks
• Tooling marks
• Texture differences
• Surface variation
• Slight dimensional differences
• Handmade finishing characteristics

Where accurately described in the listing, these natural characteristics are not necessarily defects.

📚 19. Books

Please handle books carefully if you may wish to return them.

Where a book has been damaged, marked, creased, stained or otherwise reduced in value through excessive handling, a lawful diminished-value deduction may apply.

Statutory consumer rights always take priority.

📻 20. Gurbani Radios, TF Cards & Digital Products

Gurbani Radios, replacement TF cards and related products must not be:

• Tampered with
• Modified
• Reformatted
• Physically altered

Our voluntary warranty conditions are in addition to your statutory consumer rights.

💾 21. Replacement Gurbani TF Cards

Replacement Gurbani TF Cards supplied by OnlineSikhStore Ltd are prepared and tested for compatible 32GB OnlineSikhStore Gurbani Radios.

Cards may be tested before dispatch using:

• Track 1
• Track 2
• Track 2571
• Track 2572
• Track 2573
• Track 2574

They are not designed or guaranteed for use in:

🚗 Car stereos
💻 Computers
📱 Phones or tablets
📷 Cameras
📻 Third-party Gurbani radios
⚠️ Unsupported devices

Using an unsupported device may corrupt, modify, format or delete card data.

Customers should not copy, modify, repair or reformat the supplied data.

Returned cards may be technically examined to establish whether they remain in their original dispatched condition.

✍️ 22. Customised & Personalised Products

Products genuinely made to individual customer specification may be exempt from statutory change-of-mind cancellation rights.

Examples include:

• Engraved products
• Personalised printing
• Individually altered products
• Made-to-order specifications

This does not remove rights where a customised item is genuinely faulty, incorrect or misdescribed.

📦 23. Damage During Return Transit

Customers are responsible for securely packaging returned items.

We recommend:

✔ Appropriate protective packaging
✔ Tracked postage for valuable goods
✔ Keeping proof of posting

Where an item is damaged because it was inadequately packaged, this may affect its refund value where legally permitted.

🎥 24. Return Inspection & CCTV

For fraud prevention, security and dispute resolution, returned parcels may be opened and inspected in a CCTV-covered area.

This may help establish:

• Parcel contents
• Item condition
• Missing gifts/accessories
• Substituted products
• Transit damage

CCTV and personal data will be handled in accordance with applicable data-protection requirements.

🛡️ 25. Fraud Prevention

We reserve the right to investigate where there is reasonable evidence that:

• A different item has been returned
• Parts are missing
• An item has been deliberately damaged
• A complimentary product has been improperly retained
• Identifying features do not match
• Digital media has been altered
• False information has been supplied

Where fraud or deliberate misuse is reasonably suspected, we may refuse a voluntary return, restrict future transactions or provide evidence to the relevant marketplace, payment provider or authority.

Statutory rights remain unaffected.

💳 26. Chargebacks & Payment Disputes

We encourage customers to contact us first so we have an opportunity to resolve genuine issues.

Where a chargeback or payment dispute is raised, we may provide:

• Proof of dispatch
• Proof of delivery
• Order details
• Product listing information
• Customer communication
• Photographs
• Inspection records
• CCTV evidence where lawful and relevant

Unfounded claims may be contested.

💬 27. Communication & Customer Conduct

Customer support hours:

Monday–Friday
9:00 AM–5:00 PM UK Time

Weekend and public-holiday queries are normally answered on the next working day.

🙏 We treat customers politely and respectfully and ask for the same courtesy towards our staff.

Threatening, abusive, discriminatory or persistently harassing communication will not be tolerated.

Where necessary, communication may be limited to written correspondence.

🚪 28. No Cold Calling / Appointment Only

We operate separate administration, dispatch and storage arrangements.

We cannot accommodate:

🚫 Unscheduled visits
🚫 Doorstep returns
🚫 Cold calling
🚫 Unarranged collections or exchanges

All appointments must be confirmed in advance.

📧 info@onlinesikhstore.com
📱 +44 7883 024604

💙 29. Why This Policy Matters

We operate on modest profit margins because our aim is to keep Sikh religious, cultural and everyday products affordable for the Sangat.

Every unnecessary return or repeated size exchange can create costs including:

📮 Postage
🌍 Customs tariffs
📦 Packaging
🧾 Administration
🔍 Inspection
🏷️ Restocking and relabelling
⏱️ Staff time
💳 Payment processing

These costs eventually contribute to higher retail prices.

By choosing carefully and following our return process, customers help us continue offering products at fair and affordable prices for every person and every family.

🙏 We sincerely appreciate your cooperation and support.

⚠️ Final Notice

OnlineSikhStore Ltd aims to process all genuine returns fairly, reasonably and promptly.

We also reserve the right to protect our business from deliberate misuse, fraudulent returns, substituted items, abuse or exploitation of our voluntary return arrangements.

Nothing in this policy excludes or restricts statutory consumer rights that cannot legally be excluded.

Where applicable consumer law provides greater protection, those legal rights will take priority.

🙏 Thank you for supporting OnlineSikhStore Ltd and helping us continue serving the Sangat.

Stay blessed!

OnlineSikhStore Ltd. Team