FAQ and Contact Information
Lotus Candles® - FAQ And Contact
Before contacting us, please check our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) below. Your question has probably already been answered here.
If your question is not already answered below, please contact our customer support at service@lotuscandles.com. If you are contacting us regarding an order you placed, please make sure to supply us with the order number from the receipt you received after placing your order with us. We need this to look up your order information.
ORDERING:
• Do I need to open an account to make a purchase?
• I'm having problems checking out / your website is rejecting my debit/credit card
• I didn't get a receipt after ordering. What's going on?
• Can I place an order by phone?
• I wasn't asked for a mailing address when checking out. What's going on?
ABOUT THE CANDLES:
• Are these candles reusable? / Can they be refilled? / etc.
• Do you have any candles that don't play music / play some other tune?
• Do you have any other colors?
• Can you change the colors in my order after I placed my order?
SHIPPING:
• When will my order be delivered? / How fast do you ship? / Will I get my order by date X?
• Do you offer any expedited/overnight/faster shipping? I can pay more for it.
• Has my order shipped? / Will I get a tracking number? / Where is my tracking?
• I checked the tracking and it's past the expected date for delivery. What's going on?
• I checked the tracking and it's stuck / not updating for several days. What's going on?
• I made a mistake in my mailing address. Can you fix it?
• My tracking info says my package was delivered, but I haven't received it.
• I'm from outside the USA and would like to order Lotus Candles. Can I do that?
OTHER:
• Can you call me / Can I call you? / What is your phone number?
• How can I keep track of Lotus Candles announcements?
• Your FAQ doesn't answer my question. What now?
• Do I need to open an account to make a purchase?
No, you certainly don't. Guest checkout is always available. We offer accounts as an optional convenience to our customers to save your information for faster checkout next time.
• I'm having problems checking out / your website is rejecting my debit/credit card
Most such issues can be cleared up simply by retrying using a different web browser or computer. If the website rejects your credit/debit card, you may also want to ensure that your card is valid, and, in the case of a credit card, below your credit limit.
Checkout on our site is handled securely by Shopify, our payment processor. Please note that as the merchant we do not have access to your card data at any time.
• I didn't get a receipt after ordering. What's going on?
If you're sure you placed your order correctly and didn't get a receipt, it probably went to your spam/junk folder. Check there if you don't see it after a few minutes.
It's also possible that you made a typo in your email address when ordering, or that you ordered using an account which contains an invalid email address.
• Can I place an order by phone?
Orders can only be placed via our website - it is not possible to place any orders by phone.
You probably have an account with us and chose the option to use the address stored in your account as the default shipping address. If you want to see where your order is being shipped, please see the receipt emailed to you after you ordered. If you don't see it, it probably went to your spam folder.
If that address is not correct, please contact us as soon as possible with the correct mailing address! It is important you do this right away, before your order ships.
• Are these candles reusable? / Can they be refilled? / etc.
No, they are one time use.
• Do you have any candles that don't play music / play some other tune?
No, all our candles play the Happy Birthday tune. They're birthday candles!
We generally recommend that you use them within around 6 months or so. The candles will most likely continue working well after that, although over a long time the Happy Birthday tune may get fainter or less distinct. The candles keep better if they are not stored in very hot or cold conditions. Room temperature is fine.
• Do you have any other colors?
The colors we do have for sale are as noted on our website. If you don't see it there, it's either out of stock, or we don't carry it. From time to time, we may have other colors in stock. We advise that you sign up to our newsletter to keep track of this. We usually put a notice there if we have any new colors available.
• Can you change the colors in my order after I placed my order?
Sometimes. Your order may already have shipped by the time you contact us about this - we ship out frequently to minimize mailing time delays. If your order has already shipped by the time you contact us, we will not be able to make any changes.
• When will my order be delivered? / How fast do you ship? / Will I get my order by date X?
As described on our site we ship all orders through the post office (USPS). 3 and 6 candle orders go out via USPS Ground Advantage (previously known as First Class) mail. Larger orders (9,12 etc.) go out via USPS Priority. We ship most orders from our end within 1 business day, meaning we usually give them to the post office within 1 business day. Our warehouse is located in Texas and all our orders ship from there.
Both Ground Advantage and Priority mail are NOT guaranteed delivery date services. In other words, the post office won't guarantee you'll get your package by any particular date (so neither can we). However they USUALLY take a few business days to arrive. In our experience, around 3-4 business days for Ground Advantage, and 2-3 business days for Priority.
These times are only estimates. Most of the time the post office delivers pretty fast, but sometimes they do have delays. We advise ordering your candles well ahead of your birthdays so that you won't have to worry too much about the small possibility of mailing delays. When delays do occur, our experience is that they tend to affect Ground Advantage more than Priority.
We advise that you check the post office website or call them at 1-800-ASK-USPS if you have any further questions on Ground Advantage mail or Priority mail.
• Do you offer any expedited/overnight/faster shipping? I can pay more for it.
As described above, shipping speed depends on how many candles you order. If you're on a tight deadline and are willing to pay more, we really suggest you consider ordering more candles (9 or more), since we ship orders of 9 or more candles by USPS Priority. USPS Priority usually goes through faster than Ground Advantage mail, and seems to be less susceptible to post office delays if there are any of those going on. And you end up with more candles! But it's certainly not overnight. As noted above, it usually takes 2 - 3 business days.
• Has my order shipped? / Will I get a tracking number? / Where is my tracking?
We provide a tracking number for all our orders when they ship. As described on the order page we ship most orders from our end within 1 business day, meaning we usually give them to the post office within 1 business day.
If you don't see an email with your tracking number within 1-2 business days after ordering, please check your junk/spam folder. If it's not there, you might have made a typo in the email address you gave us when you ordered. Occasionally the mailing software that sends out the tracking numbers also has glitches and just doesn't send them out. Your order will still be in transit to you on time in all of these situations, even though you didn't get the tracking.
• I checked the tracking and it's past the expected date for delivery. What's going on?
The post office is attaching an expected date to tracking numbers these days, showing their estimate of when packages will be delivered. This is just an estimate their system generates. It is NOT a guaranteed date for delivery and tends to be pretty inaccurate in our experience. Many times the post office will miss this estimate, especially if they have any internal or weather-related delays going on. You should not pay much attention to it really.
From the post office's own words (click the ? icon next to the expected delivery date on your tracking page to see): "Expected Delivery Day is the estimated delivery day based on the origin and destination of your package. Delivery on a specific day is not guaranteed."
• I checked the tracking and it's stuck / not updating for several days. What's going on?
Sometimes tracking info indeed doesn't update as the package moves through the mailing system. This seems to be a technical glitch on the part of the post office and does not necessarily mean the package is delayed. Quite often we see orders go through with no scans at all after shipment until the package is delivered.
• I made a mistake in my mailing address. Can you fix it?
We can, but only if you contact us BEFORE we ship your order. See below for our email address. Once your order ships, there is nothing we can do at our end unless the post office later returns your mail to us as undeliverable (see next question).
You are responsible for giving us the correct mailing address when you order, since we have no way of knowing at our end whether the address we are given is valid or not. We will ship to the address exactly as supplied to us when you order, so it is important to check that your mailing address is correct when ordering. If you have an account with us and are using the address saved in your account, please make sure that that address is accurate and up to date.
Please understand that there is nothing we can do to change an address on an order which has already shipped. Once orders ship, they are in the custody of the post office, not ours. If you received a shipping confirmation email with your tracking number, this means that the order has already shipped and cannot be changed or recalled in any way.
If you ship to an invalid address, the post office may be able to forward your mail to you if you have mail forwarding correctly set up with them. If not, they may return your mail to us as undeliverable. This process can take a long time - several weeks or more in many cases - and is not guaranteed (sometimes they never return undeliverable packages). We have no control over it ourselves.
If your tracking information indicates your package was returned to us (it will have final delivery in the same zip code where the package started out), please contact us so we can make arrangements for resending it. Please note that resending will cost a small additional shipping charge which customers are responsible for paying. This charge is necessary because the post office does not refund us our original mailing costs for returned orders. It will depend on your address and the number of candles you ordered.
As per our website terms of use, all sales on our website are final. Returned packages are not eligible for refunds since we cannot resell candles that have been through the mailing system to other customers.
Returned packages will be discarded by our warehouse if still unclaimed after 90 days from the original mailing date.
• My tracking info says my package was delivered, but I haven't received it.
This shouldn't happen. If you really are in this situation, we advise you contact your local post office or talk to your USPS mail carrier for an explanation of why they're claiming they delivered your package. Once we mail out packages, the post office is responsible for making sure customers get them, assuming you put down your correct address on your order. If you're not sure how to reach your local post office, you can call the general USPS number at 1-800-ASK-USPS. Have your tracking number ready when you call them - they will need that to locate your package information in their system.
Please remember that you are responsible for providing the correct address to us when you order, as well as a secure location at that address where you can retrieve your mail. You might also want to look around to see if the mailman left the package somewhere unexpected, or left a notice of attempted delivery. Perhaps someone else might have accepted the package on your behalf or it might have gone to one of your neighbors; if you live in a condo or apartment complex, your package could also be at the front desk or leasing office.
• I'm from outside the USA and would like to order Lotus Candles. Can I do that?
Unfortunately worldwide shipping is currently suspended until further notice as of 1 November 2021. We may reconsider this in future, but owing to increasingly high costs, delays and other issues with international shipping, we currently have no plans to restart our worldwide shipping program.
Note that we consider Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands, and US military addresses overseas to be USA addresses as far as mailing is concerned. To deliver to any of these locations, just place your order on our website in the usual way. Free shipping also applies to all these locations as with all USA orders!
• Can you call me / Can I call you? / What is your phone number?
To keep costs low for the benefit of all our customers, we provide support by email only. Our support center is not equipped to receive incoming calls or make outgoing ones. If your question is not already answered in our FAQ, please contact our customer support at the email address at the top of this page. Orders can only be placed via our website - it is not possible to place orders by phone.
• How can I keep track of Lotus Candles announcements?
To keep track of news and announcements, we suggest you sign up to our newsletter. We don't send out many newsletters, so don't worry about receiving too many emails. Perhaps a few times a month or so. You can also easily unsubscribe anytime after you sign up if you wish.
• Your FAQ doesn't answer my question. What now?
If you haven't found an answer to your question in our FAQ please contact our customer support at service@lotuscandles.com. When contacting us regarding an order you placed, please make sure to supply us with the order number from the receipt you received after placing your order with us. We need this to look up your order information.