FAQs

Can you explain your privacy policy?

Sure, that’s easy.  Village Pet Outfitters will never share (or sell, rent, trade, etc.) your personal information with other parties.  Never.  In fact, we ourselves will only communicate with you by phone or e-mail in order to address an issue related to a specific order or inquiry – not with random advertising.  (Hey, we hate our own inboxes receiving stuff like that, so why wouldn’t you?)

So, what’s the deal with shipping?

Actually, there are a few answers to that one.  In order to keep prices as low as possible, especially on large/heavy items, VPO has some items shipped to customers directly from the manufacturer.  For example, if a manufacturer is in California and our customer is in Oregon, it doesn’t make sense from any perspective to have the item shipped to us in New York, only to ship it right back to the west coast.  All that shipping substantially increases the price of the item, not to mention that it’s an environmentally unfriendly system.  Items shipped directly from the manufacturer ship by the carrier selected by that manufacturer.

Many items, though, are kept in inventory and shipped by Village Pet.  All those items ship by USPS Priority mail.  If we have a choice of how a direct-from-manufacturer item will ship, we also choose USPS Priority.  We have found it to be both reliable and fast—and, because the item is delivered along with regular mail, you can get delivery to a p.o. box, which is not possible with other carriers.  For the same reason, if your order gets to your location on a Saturday, you get your delivery on Saturday with no additional charge, rather than waiting until the following Monday.

VPO has a flat rate, tiered system for shipping charges.  Your shipping charge does not change regardless of whether your order ships in one box or three.  And domestic orders over $50 ship for free!  The following charges apply to domestic orders shipped to U.S. addresses only:

What about international shipping?

Right now, shipping is available to the U.S. only.  However, we’re working hard to make international shipping available on most of our items, and hope to roll out that expanded shipping program very soon! 

                                                                        
What about environmental considerations related to packaging?

Like you, VPO is concerned about our planet, and we take extremely seriously all decisions related to packaging and shipping materials.  As we mentioned above, some of our products are shipped directly from the manufacturers (to avoid waste and keep costs as low as possible).  For those items, remember that all corrugated cardboard that isn’t wax coated is recyclable, and we urge you to recycle those boxes.   For the items we ship directly from VPO, our boxes are either USPS provided (awarded Cradle to Cradle(SM) Certification for their environmental attributes) or are manufactured by a local company that uses 100% recycled content (OCC-old corrugated containers) to produce its 100% recyclable boxes. 

Perhaps best of all, if your shipment contains breakables and, therefore, packing peanuts – guess what?  We used to hate packing peanuts until we met these little guys!  They’re made of starch and other renewable resources.  They can be reused for packing and are water-soluble and completely biodegradable; they won’t ever sit in a landfill, but will go right back into the soil.  In fact, if you don’t want to save them to reuse (some people, we’re told, even use them as bedding for small mammals!), you can add a little water to them and watch them dissolve and go right down the drain!  But why not reuse them—with a completely clear conscience.

Is my financial information safe if I purchase something with you online?

Who isn’t worried about this these days?  Well, the good news is that with Village Pet, it’s absolutely, 100% safe.  The reason we’re so confident about that is that we elected to use PayPal’s payment services to assure our customers of a secure financial transaction every time.

When you begin the process of purchasing something, you’ll be seamlessly transferred to secure, encrypted pages hosted by PayPal.  (As a matter of fact, Village Pet doesn’t even see your payment information with this process.)  You don’t need a PayPal account, although if you have one, you certainly can pay that way if you wish.  However, you can also pay by VISA, M/C, AmEx, Discover, and e-Check – it’s up to you.   So feel free to shop on the Village Pet site and pay on pages securely hosted by PayPal.  And after you pay, you can be back in the Village Pet site in one click.

What about sales tax?

If your purchase is being shipped to an address in New York state, we are required to collect and pay sales tax. In New York, that can range from 7% to 8.75% depending on the county involved. We do not (at least at present) have the option of charging a different sales tax amount for each county. Our solution to that? Sales tax for all New York residents will be calculated at the lowest rate (7%). If you reside in a county that charges a higher percentage sales tax, don't worry - we'll compute and pay the difference. Just think of it as an extra benefit to shopping with us!

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