Legal
Returns and Claims Policy
Last updated: 24 October 2026
This page states what happens after a consignment leaves us, and what happens instead of a return. It applies to every wholesale order placed with AgarwoodWholesale.
The short version is at the top of clause 1 and it does not have an exception hidden further down. Everything after it is either the reasoning, or the things a no-returns policy does not remove — because a claim for goods that are wrong is not a return, and this page is careful about the difference.
1.Returns after dispatch
Once a consignment has been dispatched it cannot be returned and the order cannot be refunded on the grounds of change of mind, revised forecast, a customer of yours cancelling, or a decision not to proceed with a line.
This applies to every line we sell, at every quantity, including sample-sized first orders and including orders placed against goods held in stock rather than produced to your brief.
These are terms for business purchases, not a consumer retail offer. We do not voluntarily offer change-of-mind withdrawal. This policy does not exclude any right or remedy that cannot lawfully be excluded.
2.Why the policy is written this way
Three reasons, and it is worth reading them because each one is also the reason a different part of this site works the way it does.
For agarwood consumables, an agreed available quantity from an approved sample lot can be reserved under your name for the written reservation period. This does not automatically allocate the entire remaining lot. A return does not restore the original storage history or reservation arrangements; hardware availability is agreed separately.
Batch records and reports describe the identified material and work at the recorded time. After dispatch, later storage and handling are not established by those records alone. An earlier certificate does not prove the present condition of returned incense or oil; any assessment must consider the actual material, custody and conditions. This is distinct from whether the original report remains an accurate historical record.
Return transport adds cost and handling risk, particularly for fragile goods. Its cost depends on the actual goods and route; this policy is not based on a published comparative freight or breakage study.
3.What replaces a return: everything happens before dispatch
Because there is no return after dispatch, the decision points are deliberately front-loaded, and none of them costs a full order to use.
- For agarwood consumables, request a paid sample from the available lot under consideration. The sample charge is credited against the first wholesale order for the same product under the agreed quotation. Hardware sample arrangements are confirmed separately.
- For agarwood consumables, confirm the available balance, quantity and start date of the thirty-day batch reservation at no charge after sample approval. Hardware stock is confirmed separately.
- On private-label work, production starts only after written approval of a pre-production sample. Changes after that point are chargeable and reset the lead time, which is the honest version of the same trade.
- A certificate of analysis is issued against the packed consignment rather than against the product line. It is prepared on request and charged to you, so ask for it at order stage and we will quote it with the order rather than after dispatch.
- You may appoint a third-party pre-shipment inspection at your own cost, and we accept it as a matter of policy rather than case by case. Book it at order stage so the timetable allows for it, and we will confirm an inspection window once the batch is packed.
- We hold a sealed reference of each agarwood-consumable batch for three months from dispatch. It supports comparison within that period; hardware uses its agreed specification and records. Retention does not extend the ordinary claims window or override the latent-defect provision.
4.What a no-returns policy does not remove
A return is a way of undoing a decision you are entitled to change your mind about. A claim is what happens when the goods are not what was agreed. The first is not available; the second is unaffected by this page.
Goods outside the agreed written specification are reviewed for replacement or credit under the terms of sale. A nominal dimension is not an independently verified tolerance, and an uncommissioned test has no assumed result. Colour, resin distribution and burn character can vary in natural material; agree acceptance criteria with the sample and order.
Transit breakage above one per cent on ceramic lines is replaced. On every other line — incense, powder, oil, brass and glass — claims for shortage, damage or non-conformity must reach us within fourteen days of delivery, with photographs.
Latent defects that could not reasonably have been found on inspection are not caught by that fourteen-day window. Tell us as soon as you find one.
5.How to raise a claim
Photograph the carton, its contents and identifying marks before unpacking fully, and keep the packaging. These records help establish the condition on receipt. A claim without a photograph is not automatically refused, and a photograph alone does not settle every cause or responsibility.
Send the images, the invoice number and the batch number on the affected cartons. Legible identifiers help us locate the relevant records and, within the retention period, any retained consumable sample. They do not guarantee a same-day investigation or decision.
Where a claim is properly against the carrier rather than against us, we file it with the carrier and keep you informed. Carrier notice and claim deadlines vary by service and may be shorter than our ordinary window. Report damage promptly so the actual deadline can be checked.
Our liability is subject to clause 13 of the terms of sale: the stated invoice-value limit and remedies include the exceptions for liability that cannot lawfully be limited. This summary does not remove those exceptions.
6.Orders that have not been dispatched
This page is about consignments that have shipped. An order that has not been dispatched sits differently depending on how far it has gone: whether material has been allocated to it, whether production has started, and whether artwork or components have been committed to a print run.
What is paid to confirm an order is not refundable if you then cancel it. That payment is what commits the material, the production slot and, on private-label work, the print run, and those are committed the day the order is confirmed rather than the day it ships. Anything not yet invoiced is not owed.
Tell us as early as you can anyway. We will set out in writing what stage the order has reached, and where the work can be carried over to a later order of yours rather than written off, that is what we will do. We would rather give you an inconvenient answer at that point than an agreeable one that changes later.
Where we cancel because we cannot supply — a harvest or distillation failure, a port closure, an export restriction — we refund what has not shipped. That case is covered in the force majeure clause of the terms of sale.
Consumable sample charges are credited against the first wholesale order for the same product under the agreed quotation. Where no order follows, the supplied sample charge is not refunded.
7.Refused consignments and abandoned imports
We ship to the address on the confirmed proforma invoice. A consignment refused on arrival, or abandoned at customs because import charges were not settled, is returned or destroyed at your cost, and is not treated as a return.
Import duty, import VAT and clearance charges under DAP are yours and are not part of our price. Budget for them separately. A consignment left unpaid at customs starts accruing storage against you, not against us.
8.Where this page sits against the others
This page describes the same commitments as clauses 8, 10, 13 and 14 of the terms of sale, and the same claims window as the shipping policy. They are written to say the same thing, and if you find a place where they do not, the terms of sale is the document that governs.
Where a signed contract or purchase agreement says something different, that document wins over all three.
The commercial terms behind this page — payment, tolerances, title, liability and governing law — are in the terms of sale. Packing, Incoterms and the claims window are in the shipping policy. How a sample becomes a reserved batch is under batch sampling.
