Shipping & Delivery
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Every Yay Bestie gift is made to order, so shipping really has two parts: the days we spend personalizing and packing your piece, and the days the carrier spends getting it to the door. This page walks through both, tells you exactly where we deliver, and explains what we do when a parcel is late, lost or arrives in pieces. If you are working back from a birthday or holiday, the timeline table below is the part to bookmark. Anything we have not covered can go to support@yaybestie.com, and a real person replies within one business day.
The short version
- Making your order: 1–3 business days after payment is confirmed.
- In transit: 7–14 business days to the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
- Estimated total: 8–17 business days from order to doorstep.
- Cost: free on every order, with no minimum spend and no code to remember.
- Where we deliver: the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand only. Orders ship from the USA.
- Tracking: included on every parcel and emailed to you when it leaves us.
- If it goes wrong: lost or damaged parcels are replaced or refunded in full.
1. Why there is a making time before shipping
Nothing on our shelves is sitting in a box waiting to be grabbed. When you place an order, we take the name, date, inside joke or pet you typed and put it onto the mug, ornament, lamp panel, plaque or keychain you chose. That production step takes 1–3 business days after your payment is confirmed. Business days are Monday to Friday, not counting US public holidays, and an order placed on a Saturday starts its clock on Monday.
Most orders sit at the faster end of that range. Orders with several personalized pieces, and orders placed in the busy weeks before major gift holidays, can use the full three days. If a holiday rush ever pushes us past three business days, we will say so on the site before you order, and we will email you if an order you already placed is affected. We would rather you hear “a little later” from us than wonder why tracking has not started.
Because personalization starts quickly, any change to the wording needs to reach us fast. You have 24 hours after ordering to fix a typo or swap a size, as long as production has not begun. The Cancel or Change an Order page explains how.
2. Delivery times and costs by country
Shipping is free to all four countries we serve. There is no order minimum, no threshold to reach and no coupon to enter: the free method is applied automatically at checkout as soon as you enter an eligible address. Here is how the timeline adds up.
| Destination | Shipping method | Cost | Making time | Transit time | Estimated total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | Free tracked shipping | $0.00 | 1–3 business days | 7–14 business days | 8–17 business days |
| Canada | Free tracked shipping | $0.00 | 1–3 business days | 7–14 business days | 8–17 business days |
| Australia | Free tracked shipping | $0.00 | 1–3 business days | 7–14 business days | 8–17 business days |
| New Zealand | Free tracked shipping | $0.00 | 1–3 business days | 7–14 business days | 8–17 business days |
Transit times come from the carrier and are estimates, not promises. Weather, customs checks and peak-season volume can stretch them. Rural addresses and remote islands sometimes take a few extra days. If your parcel goes quiet or runs late, section 7 explains exactly when and how we step in.
3. Planning around a birthday or holiday
Here is a simple way to time a gift. Count back 17 business days from the day you need it in hand; that covers the slowest end of both making and transit. Three and a half calendar weeks is a comfortable cushion for most addresses. Ordering earlier never hurts, and ordering in the first half of a month means you are not competing with the end-of-month rush.
Example: your bestie’s birthday is on a Friday three weeks from today. If you order today, the slowest estimate lands right around the big day, which is tight. Order this week rather than next and you have breathing room. If the date is closer than 17 business days, email us before you order. We cannot speed up the carrier or offer an express service, but we will tell you honestly whether the timing looks realistic, so you can decide.
Sending a gift straight to the person? Enter their name and address as the shipping address at checkout and your own email for updates. We never put prices on the packing slip, so the surprise stays intact.
4. Where we deliver, and where we do not
We deliver to residential and business addresses in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Orders ship from the United States. If you enter an address in any other country, checkout will not offer a shipping method and the order cannot be completed. That is on purpose: we only promise delivery where our free shipping actually applies.
P.O. boxes and military APO/FPO/DPO addresses depend on the carrier that handles your parcel, and we cannot guarantee delivery to them. A street address is always the safest choice. If a P.O. box is your only option, email us before ordering and we will check what is possible.
5. Tracking your parcel
When your order leaves us, we send a shipping confirmation email with your tracking number and a link to the carrier’s tracking page. The first scan can take 24 to 48 hours to show up after the label is created, so “label created” with no movement on day one is normal. Parcels to Canada, Australia and New Zealand can show long gaps while they cross the border; tracking usually catches up once the local carrier scans them.
You can also look up any order on our Order Tracking page using your order number and the email address you used at checkout. No shipping email after three business days? Check your spam or promotions folder first, then write to us and we will resend it.
A quick guide to common tracking words: “label created” means we have packed your gift and booked the carrier; “in transit” or “departed facility” means it is moving between depots; “held by customs” or “awaiting clearance” is normal for parcels to Canada, Australia and New Zealand and usually clears within a few days; “delivery exception” means the carrier hit a snag, such as a closed building or a missing unit number, and will often try again the next business day.
6. Getting the address right
A missing apartment number is the most common reason a gift goes astray. Before you click Place order, check the recipient’s full name, street, unit or suite, city, state or province, and ZIP or postal code. For Australian and New Zealand addresses, include the suburb; for Canadian addresses, double-check the postal code format.
Spot a mistake after ordering? Email us straight away. We can update the address free of charge until the parcel is handed to the carrier. Once it has shipped, we will ask the carrier to redirect it, but carriers do not always accept redirects. If a parcel comes back to us because the address was incomplete, we reship it as soon as you confirm the right one; if the mistake was ours, the reship costs you nothing.
7. Late, stuck or lost parcels
Give tracking a little patience, then give us a shout. Contact us with your order number if either of these happens:
- tracking has not updated for 7 business days, or
- the parcel has not arrived 7 business days after the latest date in your estimate.
We open an investigation with the carrier on your behalf; you do not have to chase them. If the carrier confirms the parcel is lost, or the investigation is not resolved within 5 business days, we remake and resend your order for free or refund it in full, whichever you prefer. Refunds reach your original payment method within 7 days of approval, as set out in our Refund Policy.
If tracking says “delivered” but there is no parcel, check around the door, with neighbours, in a building mailroom or parcel locker, and with the local post office. Carriers sometimes scan a parcel as delivered a day before it actually arrives. Still nothing after two days? Contact us within 60 days of the delivery date and we will work it out with you.
8. When a parcel arrives damaged
We pack mugs, ceramic and glass with padding, but the occasional parcel still meets a heavy-handed sorting belt. If your mug is chipped, your wooden ornament is cracked or your bottle lamp arrives broken, please:
- take photos of the outer box, the shipping label and the damaged item;
- keep the packaging for a few days in case the carrier asks for it;
- send the photos and your order number to support@yaybestie.com within 60 days of delivery.
We will remake and resend the item free of charge, or refund it in full, and in most cases you do not need to send the broken piece back. One small note: acrylic night lights and ornaments often arrive with a thin protective film on the surface. It can look cloudy or scratched until you peel it off, so try that first. The Returns & Exchanges Policy covers damage claims in more detail.
9. Several items in one order
Items in the same order normally travel together in one parcel. Occasionally we split an order so that a quicker item is not held back by a slower one, or because a mug and a blanket simply pack better apart. A split shipment never costs you extra, and you get a separate tracking number for each parcel. Ordering a matching pair of keychains for two best friends in two different countries? Place two orders with two shipping addresses; each ships free.
10. Customs, duties and taxes
All prices are in US dollars. We do not add sales tax at checkout, so the total shown at checkout is what you pay us. Orders to Canada, Australia and New Zealand cross a border, and the destination country may charge import duties, taxes such as GST, or a customs handling fee when the parcel arrives. Those charges are set by the destination country, are not included in our prices or our free shipping, and are the recipient’s responsibility. Low-value gifts often pass without any charge, but we cannot predict the decision of a customs office.
If a recipient refuses to pay import charges and the parcel is returned to us, we refund the item price once the parcel reaches us. If you are sending a gift abroad and want to avoid surprising the recipient with a bill, consider mentioning it to them, or check the import thresholds published by the destination’s customs agency before ordering.
11. Questions about delivery
We are happy to help with timing, addresses and anything tracking-related. Email support@yaybestie.com, open a request on the Submit Ticket page, or browse the Help Center and FAQs. Include your order number and we can usually answer in one reply. We respond within one business day.