We are
primarily an online business and so you may
interact with us via our website and email 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365
days of the year.
Our office and warehouse is normally open every
weekday for telephone enquiries or for advice on 01747 830670, as follows:
Monday-Thursday : 1000-1445 and 1600-1700
Friday : 1000-1400
The telephone will normally be answered during
these times. However, when call traffic is heavy we sometimes cannot take every
call. In such cases please email us at
sales@solidstatesound.co.uk or call again. We always respond to email. Many
thanks.
Being an online business we do not have a shop
or showroom, nor do we have a collection point. All our orders are sent out by
courier or Royal Mail.
•
Closures & Holidays
Our website remains
open 365/24/7 but the office and warehouse
will be closed on the following days:
Late Summer Holiday 2019
We are family firm and so on the rare occasions we do, we
close. We will be closed from noon on Friday 27.09.19 until 10am
on Monday 14.10.19. All emails and orders received during this period
will be acted upon during the week of 14.10.19. Thank you for your understanding.
We can take
corporate credit/debit card orders by phone only if you are one of the following
types of customer:
Government
Department
Local Authority
Educational
Establishment
Training
Organisation
Registered Charities
Public Limited
Company (PLC)
Any Similar
Organisation
We can also supply
these types of customers against an official order (by email, fax or post) and
then send an invoice.
Whilst we can take
telephone orders and payments from private companies and individuals, we only do
so in special cases and when there is a valid technical reason preventing an
order being placed with us online (e.g. our website being 'down' or just not
working properly for some reason).
For security reasons
we prefer private customers to place orders with us online (see
Buying from our Webshop above) because
it is far more secure for all of us.
•
Paying by Card via PayPal
(why we love it and why you should
too!)
First of all please remember -
it is NOT necessary to have a PayPal account to
buy from us - you can still usually pay by card in the normal way (see
above). Having got that out of the way, here's why we love PayPal (and perhaps
why you should too)...
Imagine a situation where your credit card has
been stolen and used to place an order worth over £3600 without
your knowledge. That is exactly what actually once happened to us in 2004. It
was a fairly brutal lesson in card crime both for us and the real owner of that
card.
As a result we took a long, hard look at all
the online card processing companies and what they offer, especially in the area
of card security.
That's why we use PayPal to process our
customers' online orders because they are easily the most secure method
available. Would you believe PayPal are the only debit/credit card
processing company that takes the trouble to tie up the actual card you wish to
use with its billing (card statement)? They call this their verification
process. Hence it is almost impossible for someone
who has stolen your card to use it via PayPal. This completely protects
you and us against fraud.
Here's a short overview of how it works...
(Click
here to go to PayPal for more details.)
You may use your credit or debit card to
place up to ten orders with sites, like ours, who use PayPal to
process their payments.
To continue to be able to place card-paid
orders with sites using PayPal you would be invited to sign up for a
PayPal account (very easy!).
Once you have a verified PayPal account, you can enjoy
even more secure transactions with us and many other sites using the
credit/debit cards you have registered on your PayPal account, or you can pay with any
balance you may have in your new PayPal bank account that they give you (yes,
PayPalis much more than just a card processing
company!).
Remember: when your card payments are processed by on other
sites, most of them do not check properly that the card you are using is
actually YOUR card. This means that your card could be being used by someone
else fraudulently. It could also mean we could be inadvertently selling
something to a criminal. That's why we only use
PayPal. In our view, they
are the only card processors who take security seriously.
Click here to have a look at their website - we recommend you
become a fully verified PayPal member - it really will make a growing
number of your online transactions quicker and more secure.
You may also speak to
PayPal on 08707 307 191.
Lastly, a word about corporate credit/debit cards and PayPal :
Our experience suggests that PayPal do not much care for corporate
cards. The reason for this is pretty clear - that that kind of card can more
easily be misused or stolen. Therefore, if you are having trouble using your
corporate card with us, please call us on 01747-830670 or email
sales@solidstatesound.co.uk and
we'll see if we can help you pay in another way.
If you prefer, you may pay us by direct bank transfer from your
bank to ours. In order to do this you will need to give your bank our bank
details. Please ask us for these by telephone only on +44 (0)1747 830670.
Since 01.01.12 payment by bank
transfer is usually instantaneous or, at worst, it takes no more than two hours to arrive in our account
so this method is now, at last, a pretty efficient way of making payments.
We keep good stocks of virtually 100% of the products
shown on our website at all times. If the site says a product is in stock, it
usually is in stock*. When an item is temporarily unavailable for some reason
(i.e. when stock availability is out of our control), we normally say so in a
note against the product listing so you know the position.
Our normal shipping policy is as follows:
If you pay for an order online by 1pm on any weekday we normally send your order
out immediately so you have it during the next weekday. We do not send out orders during occasional holiday or other
closures (see Holidays & Closures below). This policy covers
the vast majority of our orders. There would only
be a slight delay if your order came in during a holiday or other closure, or at the same time as other orders for the
same item, and we do not have enough stock to satisfy them all. In rare
cases like this, we allocate that stock on strictly first come-first-served
basis by the time and date on your order. We then fulfil the remaining order/s
from the next shipment of that item - usually within a few days. We also try and
notify you by email if this occurs.
We do not
normally deliver on Saturday or Sunday. Why? Because the failure-to-deliver rate by post
and courier services is much higher at weekends. When we did used to offer
weekend deliveries, and the deliverer failed to perform, we found that it was us who got the the blame, not the
service we used. So we prefer not to offer the service at all rather than
disappoint customers and lose them.
Please note that during occasional company
closures (see below) we will deliver in-stock orders placed
during the closure immediately on reopening for business.
If you would like to confirm stocks of any item
we sell please just call us on 01747-830670 or email us at
sales@solidstatesound.co.uk
*Very occasionally an unusually generous order may clear us out
of stock of an item but in most cases this will
only mean a delay of 2-3 days before we are back in stock. If there is a general
shortage of a particular item, then we will normally have a note about this
on its listing in our Webshop.
To purchase products from this site please go
to the bottom of the product page or section for the specific product or range of products
you need. There you will find a priced list of the various versions of the
product/s available.
To purchase please
just click on the
button at
the end of the relevant product line. This will add the product to your Shopping
Basket.
You may check your
Shopping Basket at any time by clicking the
icon at the top of
the left side menu on every page of this site.
You may add and deduct quantities of the item/s
you need at any time but don't forget to click on Update each time you do
this.
To add more items to
your basket either just click on the Continue Shopping
button or go back to our site in another window.
Once you have
completed your order please click on either the
button (if you
wish to use a credit or debit card and you do not have a PayPal account) or the
button if you do
have a PayPal account and wish to use it or a credit, debit card or bank account
associated with it.
•
Rebates
From time to time we may offer a
rebate either of a percentage or a fixed amount off
the price of an item, or a range of items.
For instance we are
currently running a rebate of 10% off any item* bought from this website during
our extended Christmas & New Year holiday closure this season. So how does this
work?
It's simple... if you
place an order for anything at all via this website during the period from
6.01pm on Friday 9th December 2016 until 9.59am on Monday 23rd January 2017 we
will refund you 10% of its cost on despatch of the order.
That's a saving of
£50, say, on an order with value of £500 - well worth having!
We hope this will
compensate you for having to wait for us to re-open on Monday 23rd January 2017
in order to supply you. A sort of 'thank-you' to customers who are not in a
hurry and perhaps do not need their kit immediately.
[*Excludes items in
our Offcuts Sale and Leads
Sale pages as these are already generously discounted.]
•
Service & Repair
Products under warranty - the
products we sell are covered by a manufacturer's 12 month warranty. The
warranty cover lasts for a minimum period of 12 months from the date of
invoice. If your product is still under warranty and you think you have a
problem with it, then you should first email us at
sales@solidstatesound.co.uk giving us your name
and address, the date of purchase and, if possible, our invoice number. We
will then either call or email you.
Products not under warranty - if you are having
trouble with a product that is over 12 months old and no longer covered by
its manufacturer's warranty then you should contact its manufacturer's or
distributor's appointed service agents.
Click here for a list of these by brand.
We deliver worldwide and we use
the most appropriate courier service for each individual job depending on what we are
sending you and where we are sending it to.
For small-to-medium sized, low cost items
(typically sub-£150) that will fit in a postal sized padded bag, we
normally use Royal Mail or Hermes Post. Goods sent by these methods
usually arrive within 1-3 working days.
For small-to-medium sized higher cost
items (typically £150 to £500) that will fit in a postal sized padded
bag, we usually use Interlink's
Expresspak service which normally arrive the next working
day*.
For the larger sized items of any value,
we normally use Interlink's Express Parcel Service. The majority of UK mainland
parcels sent in this way will arrive the next working day* and be fully
insured by us against loss or damage in transit.
[*Interlink provide a One-Hour Time Window
delivery service. This means you no longer have to wait in all day for a
delivery because we will email you with the tracking number for your
parcel and this will enable you to find out from their website within
which hour your parcel will be delivered.]
Our standard delivery charges to Mainland UK addresses
are as follows...
£4.95 for other
purchases with a value of £0.01 to £30 £7.95
for other purchases with a value of £30.01 to
£250 £9.95 for
other purchases with a value of £250.01 to £750 £11.95 for
other purchases with a value of £750.01 to £999.99
FREE for
all purchases with a value of £1000 or more up
to 50kgs*
*Consignments of
50kgs or more will be charged at £25
• Please remember...
Our charges include the carrier's cost
(postage or courier fee) plus insurance, as well as the cost of the
packaging materials plus the time it takes to administer, prepare and label
your package.
Note especially that all our deliveries
are insured. This is important because in our regular checks on what our
competitors charge for delivery they are often using the cheapest and least
secure methods of getting your order to you. And this can mean that if your
order goes missing (or is damaged) in transit you may not be covered and/or
the order will be delayed.
In such cases it often takes a long time
(days, sometimes weeks) to sort the problem out before you actually get the
equipment you have paid for. We know this because customers who have been
'stung' before when buying elsewhere have told us.
So, as with everything else in life, you get what
you pay for. We believe our delivery charges represent excellent value
because you get your order usually within 24-48 hours and if it lost or
damaged we normally send you another one immediately, with no quibbles, and
then we make a claim and you don't have to do anything.
That's why our delivery services are
actually better
than our competitors.
If you
purchase through our webshop direct from this site then you should click on the
button (above,
left), and then on the SECURE CHECKOUT
button to see how much your shipping charges are going to be. We believe them to
be reasonable but if you wish to discuss any shipping
costs you feel are unreasonable then please call us on 01747-830670.
• Deliveries by courier to UK Highlands &
Islands*: Our
website is coded to calculate the appropriate delivery charge for a mainland UK address
for any given order placed, even if you are placing the order from a UK
Highlands & Islands address. If your parcel is small enough (e.g. one single
small solid state sound recorder) then this can often be carried by Royal Mail
services at no extra cost. However, if it is a larger parcel that we can only
send by courier to a UK Highlands & Islands address, then we reserve the right
to make a surcharge for this. In such cases we will email you a
separate invoice for the appropriate amount and you may click on a link in that
invoice to make the extra payment. Once this is received we will be able to deliver.
[Summary: our UK Highlands & Islands address surcharge only applies to
courier deliveries of larger parcels. Deliveries of smaller parcels to UK
Highlands & Islands addresses by Royal Mail 1st Class and Royal Mail Special
Delivery services will cost the same as for mainland UK addresses.]
• Delivery to non-UK addresses: Our
website is coded to calculate the appropriate delivery charge for a UK address
for any given order placed, even if you are placing the order from outside the
UK. If you require your order to be delivered to a non-UK address, then we
reserve the right to make a surcharge for this. The amount will depend on where
in the world you want us to make a delivery. In such cases we will email you a
separate invoice for this amount and you may click on a link in that invoice to
make the extra payment. Once this is received we will be able to deliver.
• Please note that, in many cases, small
(lightweight) orders to many EC countries will not incur a surcharge if we send
them by Royal Mail.
•
Three Year Extended
Warranty
The majority of the
products we sell come to you with a manufacturer's warranty, or guarantee,
lasting just one year from the date of sale. This is to cover any manufacturing
defects that may result in problems down the line.
Here at Solid State
Sound we feel that one year is too short. After all, the product you've bought
from us is surely designed to work properly for far longer than this. But will
it? We'd all like to think so.
In case it
doesn't, though, we'll give you a further two years on top of the manufacturer's
warranty, thus ensuring you are covered for a total of three long years. For
your peace of mind.
• Please note that for
those rare products that are guaranteed by their manufacturer for longer than
one year we will extend this by a further one year. If you don't mind.
All prices shown on this
website show our prices including VAT at the standard rate in
force.Click here to
use our VAT Calculator -
this will enable you to deduct the VAT element of
our prices to see how much the price is without VAT.
If you choose to purchase products from our
webshop, regardless of where you are in the world, the prices, as well as shipping costs,
that you will be charged will all include VAT. All
electronically generated invoicing from our webshop and via our merchant
service, PayPal, will show pricing inclusive of VAT. If you are VAT registered,
then naturally you may calculate the VAT element of our price and reclaim it in
the normal way. However, if you require a formal VAT invoice showing VAT as
separate element then please call us on 01747-830670 and we'll gladly send you a
copy.
If you are purchasing from outside the
UK and the EC then you should not use our webshop or you will be charged UK VAT.
Instead, please contact us
at
sales@connectronics.uk.com with a list of your requirements. We will then confirm
pricing and shipping costs (your exact address is required please) without
UK VAT and then
we will finalize the transaction by sending you a PayPal email invoice, or else by
using our bank details above you may make a bank transfer to us.