Luthiers Mercantile International
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Wood, Supplies & Tools for the Guitar Builder
 
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P o l i c y   P a g e

Tell Us What You Want!

Our overriding policy is simple. LMI wants to be your source for guitar woods, materials, supplies, and tools, and we are committed to making sure that you are happy with your purchase. We invite you to mention in the special instructions box on the checkout page exactly what you are looking for, especially in the case of wood items. We take pride in taking the extra effort to help you make your project a success.

Privacy

The information you provide is kept within our company. Custom instruments are not a commodity; neither are our customers identities or the services and materials we provide for them. We appreciate the opportunity to do business with you as an individual customer, and none of the information you provide or that is generated through our relationship is for sale or other distribution. Likewise, we do not purchase or use any sorts of mailing lists.

Location - Phones -Hours -Visitors - Holidays

Luthiers Mercantile International, Inc. is located at 7975 Cameron Dr., Bldg. 1600, Windsor, CA 95492. Reach us by phone at 1-800-477-4437 (domestic toll free) or 707-687-2020 (International or Local). Fax us at 707-687-2014.

Our phones are staffed Monday-Friday from 8:30 am to 5 pm (Pacific Time). We are closed on weekends and the holidays of Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Day, Thanksgiving and the day after Thanksgiving, Easter (taken the Friday before Easter), Memorial Day, Labor Day, 4th of July, and Martin Luther King Day.

You are welcome to order by phone or internet and then pick up your ‘Will Call’ packages at LMI. ‘Will Call’ is open Monday through Friday, 9-4:00, Pacific time. Normally, your order will be ready for pick-up in the afternoon of the next business day, assuming there are no shop services on the order. Keep in mind that you will not be able to adjust, add to or make substitutions to your order when you are at LMI.

We occasionally provide warehouse tours for educational institutions and small groups. Please call to make arrangements well in advance.

- Domestic Shipping

Our Accelerated Shipment Arrival Pledge is simple. Under this plan, your package is guaranteed to arrive within 3 to 5 business days. (Saturdays, Sundays, and Holidays are not business days.) If it is not there on the 5th day, your shipping charges will be refunded. In most cases, our basic service is so good that you will not need to pay extra for expedited service.
 

Domestic Shipping with
Order Amount 3 day 2 day
0.00 - $50.00 $8.50 $13.50 $17.50
50.01-100.00 $10.50 $15.50 $19.50
$100.01 - $200.00 $12.50 $17.50 $21.50
$200.01 - $400.00 $14.50 $19.50 $23.50
$400.01 - and up $16.50 $21.50 $25.50

For example, if you order on a Thursday, your order will usually arrive the following Tuesday (Count Friday as day one.). If it is not there by Thursday, your shipping costs are refunded. This offer does not include special requests (find me a board with wide grain) nor serviced items (joined backs, slotted fingerboards, special order truss rods, etc.), since these items require time in house before they are shipped, nor does the arrival guarantee apply when the customer specifies a shipping method such as USPS or UPS.

Shipments to Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico ship via Priority mail. Our ASAP guarantee does not apply (the post office does not guarantee Priority Mail shipments) but your order will usually arrive within 5 days. Standard ASAP shipping rates apply, except where an item is marked with a .

Expedited shipping is available in the contiguous United States. Except for items, which are charged actual freight, three day service costs an extra $5.00 and 2 day service costs an extra $9.00. If your order is placed before 12:00 PST (3:00 p.m. EST), it will ship the same day. Of course, this does not include serviced items and special requests, or the exceptions mentioned below.

 

Our guarantee applies to most of the items we sell. But there are certain very heavy, oddly shaped, or dangerous items that require an extra day or have other restrictions. On our shopping cart these items are indicated with a or a or a. Unless it is HAZMAT , there is no extra charge when an order containing these items is shipped in the contiguous 48 states under our program, but the order is guaranteed to arrive in 4-6 days, not 3-5 (longer to Hawaii, Alaska and Puerto, where actual shipping rates are charged.). If an item is flagged with a it may not be exported, usually because it is subject to CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) regulations.

In addition, items marked with a are Dangerous Materials (ORMD) and only ship ground and are only available in the contiguous 48 states. Items marked with a are Hazardous Materials (HAZMAT) and are only available in the contiguous 48 states.

Special Shipping Charges: By law, items with a must conform to federal hazardous material regulations when shipped. All carriers who are certified to handle Hazardous Materials (such as
FedEx) charge $25.00 to handle HAZMAT packages, so we must add this to your shipping charge. We do not keep any of this fee. We only ship HAZMAT items with Fedex.There is one $25.00 HAZMAT fee per package, so it may be in your interest to consolidate your purchase of Ivoroid and Tortoise products as much as possible. HAZMAT deliveries require a signature.

All orders that we ship are insured, but in some cases it will take several weeks to complete a claim for you.

Summary of Restrictions
Shipments containing an oversized item:
When shipping to Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico, actual shipping rates (roughly, what the carrier charges us) apply, so please request a quote. Standard ASAP rates apply in the contiguous United States, but add a day to shipping time. International Customers please request a shipping quote.
Dangerous Materials:
Can not ship outside the contiguous USA. Standard ASAP rates apply in the contiguous USA, but add a day for shipping.
Hazardous Materials (HAZMAT):
Can not ship outside the contiguous USA. Standard ASAP rates apply but add a day or two for shipping. A $25.00 service fee from the carrier is added to your order. NOTE: Delivery cannot be completed without a signature.
No Export:
Sometimes an item can only be sold in the 50 US states. This is usually because of restrictions prompted by CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species), USFWS (US Fish and Wildlife Service) or some other regulatory agency.

 

International Shipping

The actual cost of freight will be added to your total when your order is shipped.
  1. If you want a quote of shipping costs before your order is shipped, please tell us in the Special Instructions box below. We will send you an email with various shipping choices, usually in a few hours. We will not ship until you have approved a shipping method.
  2. If you want a shipping quote, for quicker service, we recommend number 1 above. However, if in addition to a quote, you do not want to enter your credit card at this time, enter the word quote instead of a credit card number. Enter anything you like for the expiration date, name, and verification number. After you have approved a shipping method, we will tell you how to transmit your credit card information to us. This process generally takes an extra day.
  3. The charges for your country’s taxes or import duties are not included in your payment to us for your purchase or shipping. These costs, if any, are your additional responsibility

 

Items marked with a or a or a are not available to International customers.

The charges for your country’s taxes or import duties are not included in your payment to us for your purchase or shipping. These costs, if any, are your additional responsibility.

All international deliveries require a signature for receipt of the package.

 

Returning or Exchanging an Item

Please examine your purchase immediately upon receipt. You can return an item to us within 2 weeks of receiving it (for exchange or refund), for any reason so long as you discuss your return with a salesperson beforehand (by phone, fax or email). After 2 weeks, we may charge you a 15% restocking fee for any return. All returns after 60 days are at LMI’s discretion. LMI will pay return shipping only in cases where the items are defective or do not match size specifications. All returns must be unworked and in resale condition. We do not accept returns on items serviced by LMI unless we have made an error on the service.
After you have received authorization, please ship returns to: LMI attn: Returns, 7975 Cameron Dr., Bldg. 1600, Windsor, CA 95492.

What Happens if an Item I Order is Out of Stock?

We try to provide you with the most up-to-date inventory information at the point of sale, but it is possible that an item may become out of stock by the time we ship your order. We will automatically backorder any item that is out of stock, unless you specify otherwise at the point of sale. Shipping within the continental USA on backordered items is free.
Out-of-stock items shipping outside the continental United States will be removed from your order and you will need to reorder them at a later date. We will only place a backorder for you if you explicitly agree in advance to pay the shipping costs.
Please note that in our business, we deal with a wide variety of vendors. Many deal in exotic, hard to find products and many are overseas. For this reason it is not always possible for us to be precise when estimating when a backordered item will ship and in the case of some of the exotic woods, we can not guarantee that supplies and quality will remain consistent in the future. Once again, ask a salesperson (click here) for the latest information!

School Discounts

LMI helps support guitar building students and instructors by providing them with a 10% discount on any item in our catalog (which is not already discounted or on sale). We need only to be able to ship the package to the school’s address in order to verify enrollment. Contact us if you are an instructor interested in getting special pricing on larger quantities of woods and tools. Need extra catalogs? Let us know!

Credit Card Payment Processing

When you place an order using a credit card, we follow the standard practice of pre-authorizing the card for the amount of the order. The process of pre-authorizing tells us that you have sufficient funds for your order and puts a hold on that amount for approximately 6 days. When your order ships, we get paid. This payment process is called post-authorizing. This process clears the pre-authorization and actually takes the money from your card (or bank account if you are using a debit card).

If your order never ships (because of a backorder, for example), the pre-authorization clears after anywhere from 6-30 days, depending on your banks policy. If your order ships and the amount of the order is less than the pre-authorization, the actual amount of the order is charged to the card and the pre-authorization clears.

If you add to an order, your bank sometimes makes it necessary for us to pre-authorize the card a second time so that we can be assured of getting our funds when the order ships. In this situation, the original pre-authorization is not cleared (the credit card companies give us no way to do this) so that in effect funds are tied up twice on your card for a short time. We will only pre-authorize your card a second time if the items being added to the order are material in value.

Ordering

In addition to ordering from this web site, you may also order by phone 1-800-477-4437, or by mail (LMI, 7975 Cameron Dr., Bldg. 1600, Windsor, CA 95492), or by fax 707-687-2014. When ordering by mail or fax, please use the order form available here. For our current catalog in printable form, click here.

Questions?

Finally, if you have any questions or concerns about LMI, our products, your order, or the customer service you have received, feel free to call us at 1-800-477-4437 or click here. A salesperson or our customer service manager will be happy to talk with you.

 

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