Shipping & Delivery

Stock items bought on this site

These are unbranded goods, held here in New Zealand and sold exactly as they come. There is no artwork step and no production run, so the only things between your payment and your parcel are our picking and the courier.

• We aim to dispatch within 2–3 working days of your payment clearing.
• Then a tracked NZ courier — about 2 working days, longer to rural addresses.
• Door to door we state 5–7 working days, and we would rather beat it than explain it. That figure is the one to plan around.

Working days are Monday to Friday, excluding New Zealand public holidays observed in Hamilton. An order paid over a weekend starts its clock on the next working day.

Branded orders (quotes)

Branded work is made to order, so there is no single lead time we can honestly print on a page. Your quote letter states the date — it is calculated from your decoration method, your quantity and the day you sign off, and it is the number to plan around.

1. You approve your design. Nothing is made and nothing is committed until you sign off.
2. Production runs. How long depends entirely on the decoration method — a laser engraving and a full-colour print are not the same job — so the date is calculated per order rather than promised in general.
3. Dispatch and courier, on the same tracked NZ network as everything else.

If a date matters — an event, a conference, a launch — tell us before you sign off. We will tell you straight whether it is achievable.

What delivery costs

A flat delivery charge of NZ$17.25 including GST is added at the checkout for delivery within New Zealand, whatever the size of the order. The charge is shown to you before payment is completed, and it is fixed: we do not invoice any freight variance, fuel surcharge, or additional delivery cost after an order has been placed.

One charge covers one order to one address. If you need an order split across two addresses, email us first — that is two deliveries, and we will quote it before you pay.

Where we deliver

New Zealand only. We do not ship overseas.

Rural addresses take longer — typically two to three working days on top of the courier times above, and the carrier does not always flag an address as rural until the parcel is on the network. If you are rural and working to a date, tell us and we will build the extra days in.

PO boxes. Our courier delivers to a physical address and needs someone or somewhere to leave a parcel — a PO box or a private bag will not work. Please give us a street address, and a company name or unit number if the building has more than one tenant. Where a delivery fails because the address given was incomplete, we will contact you to arrange re-delivery, which may incur a further delivery charge.

Tracking

Every order ships on a tracked courier service. We email you the tracking number when the parcel leaves us, to the address you gave at the checkout — so use one you actually read. If nothing has arrived and the tracking has gone quiet, email gem@littlegems.kiwi and we will chase the courier. You should not have to.

Delays, and what these times actually are

Every time on this page is an aim based on how our supplier and our courier normally perform. They are estimates, not guarantees, and freight can be unpredictable — weather, peak season, and a carrier's own backlogs all move parcels around. If something is running late we would rather tell you than let you find out from a tracking page.

None of this limits your rights under the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993, including the right to have goods supplied within a reasonable time.

If it arrives damaged, or doesn't arrive

Until the parcel reaches you, the risk of it being lost or damaged in transit sits with us. Tell us what happened and we deal with the courier. How claims, replacements and refunds work is set out in our Refund Policy.