Terms & Conditions

Welcome to our Online Bookshop.  We hope you enjoy using our site which we have created to serve you better.

Each time you use our site and especially before placing an order, please read these Conditions carefully because we may make changes to them from time to time and your use of the site will be subject to the conditions in place at the time of use.

Your use of our site implies acceptance of these Conditions and our Privacy Policy.

Who We Are

This Online Bookshop is owned and run by the Community of St John the Baptist (also referred to as “the Monastery”).  We are a charity registered with the Charity Commission in England and our registration number is 282448.

If you need to contact us by email, please write to Fr Barnabas who oversees the running of the site at enquiries.bookshop@essexmonastery.com, or via the Contact Us page. 

Intellectual Property Rights

The entire content of this site including but not limited to text, graphics, logos, button icons, images, book cover design (where the book is published by us) etc belongs to us and is protected by the UK and international copyright and authors’ rights laws.  All such rights are reserved.

We provide extracts from our publications for you to sample before purchasing.  You may print off one copy or download the extract for your own personal use, but you must not use it for any commercial purpose, reproduction, publication, transmission or distribution.  You must not modify the paper or digital copy of the downloaded extract or any other materials you have printed off or downloaded.  Graphics, logos and images from our site must not be reproduced under any circumstances without our express consent in writing.

If you print off, copy or download any part of our site in breach of these Conditions, we reserve the right to request that the copies you have made are handed to us or destroyed.

Placing an order and payments

When you place an order, a contract is created between you and us in which you are offering to buy the goods and be bound by these Conditions.

Once you have placed your order, you will receive an automatically generated email acknowledging and accepting your order.  Please check that the details in the email are correct and contact us immediately by email if not.  In most cases, we will be able to rectify the mistake for you before we despatch your order.

For your convenience you can browse our Online Bookshop and pay in the currency of your choice and we offer a wide selection of currencies for you to choose from including Sterling, Euros and US Dollars.  At the checkout you will be given the option of paying by credit or debit card through Stripe or Paypal or by BACS directly into our UK bank account.  Whichever method you choose we will not have access to your payment card or bank details.  We do however request that customers choosing to pay by BACS make their payment as promptly as possible after the order has been confirmed.  In most cases we will process and ship your order whilst awaiting payment but we cannot guarantee that this will always be possible.  It would also be helpful when paying by BACS if you could include your order number as the reference so we can match the payment to your order. 

International orders

We welcome orders from outside the UK but due to recent EU VAT changes, those being delivered to an address in the EU will include a charge in respect of VAT at the rate of the destination country.  This means that you should not have to pay any VAT or other charges upon delivery of your order because we collect and pay it on your behalf by way of the IOSS scheme (Import One Stop Shop).  This scheme is limited by the EU to parcels with a subtotal value up to €150.  If the items you wish to purchase exceed this limit, you will be responsible for paying the appropriate amount of VAT and import duties levied by the country to which the order has been shipped.

We endeavour to do what we can to ensure that you do not have the inconvenience of having to pay any extra charges before your order is delivered.  However we will not be held liable if your order is delayed or stopped by your national boarder control and/or if you are asked to pay any additional fees before it is released. 

Wholesale orders

For wholesale orders we have special discounted rates.  Please contact us for further information. 

Gift Wrap

We recognise that sometimes you may wish to make a gift of one or more of our books and we are pleased to be able to offer Gift Wrap as an additional service.  At the checkout you will be asked if you wish to add a note or greeting for the recipient which we will print and include with the gift.  At present the Gift Wrap design and arrangement is at our discretion. 

Returns

We hope that you will be happy with your purchase from our Online Bookshop but if you wish to return something, you can do so within 30 days of receipt, provided the item is returned to us in its original condition.  We will not be liable for any item which fails to reach us and as such you are advised to return the item to us using a secure method which adequately covers the value of the goods being returned. If using Royal Mail in the UK we advise you to obtain a Certificate of Posting.  Please also send returns in a protective package to reduce the risk of damage in transit.  We may not be able to refund you in full if the items are returned damaged.

Please send your return to Fr Barnabas, Old Rectory, Rectory Road, Tolleshunt Knights, Maldon, Essex CM9 8EZ United Kingdom. Please also include a note inside the package with your name and order number so we can process the refund.  Unfortunately, we are unable to refund any postage costs unless you have to return something due to an error on our part. 

Once we receive your return, we will endeavour to process your refund within five working days.  We will send you an email both upon receipt of the returned goods and once we have processed the refund.

We cannot process exchanges so if you would like to exchange an item you have purchased for something else, please return that item and place a new order on the site.

If you have received an incorrect or damaged item, please let us know immediately (or at the latest within 14 days after receiving your order) by email so we can resolve the issue for you. Likewise if you purchase our Gift Wrap and you are not satisfied for any reason with it, please contact us as soon as possible and we will try our best to put the matter right. 

Cancellation

You have the right to cancel your order up to 14 days after your order has been delivered.  If you wish to cancel your order, please send us an email clearly stating your request.  You do not need to give us a reason for your wish to cancel.

Once we receive your email, we will reply to acknowledge receipt of the cancellation.  You will then have 14 days from the date you communicate your cancellation in which to return the order to us.

If you cancel and return your order in full within the time frames given above for cancellation of an order, we will refund the cost of the order and reimburse to you the cost of delivery (unless you have chosen a more expensive delivery method than the standard delivery offered by us, in which case we will refund only the cost of the standard delivery charge).  We will not be able to refund the return postage cost.

Delivery

We use Royal Mail, Parcelforce, DHL and FedEx for deliveries within the UK and worldwide.  Depending on the delivery destination, the postage options will be presented to you at the checkout.  

We aim to process orders within two working days.  We will send you an email once your order has been dispatched.  We may be able to give an estimated arrival date depending on your chosen postal method. 

If after 10 working days (or 20 working days if you are outside the UK) you do not receive your order, please send us an email to let us know so we can investigate further.  If your order is not delivered within 60 days of the dispatch date, we will issue you with a refund or replacement (whichever you choose).

We reserve the right to cancel an order where the delivery address is one that we are not able to deliver to.

Whilst we will always make every effort to ensure that your order is fulfilled, we are not able to accept liability if your order is delayed or prevented due to circumstances beyond our control such as postal and airline strikes, civil unrest, local, national or international lockdowns and weather conditions.

Stock availability

We are not able to guarantee our ability to supply any particular book or quantity of books but we will endeavour to meet your needs wherever possible. We reserve the right to cancel an order if we have insufficient stock to fulfil the order.

From time to time, we may include on our site books which may be  unavailable either due to lack of stock or because they are out of print.  We include such books for information purposes only and to gather information from site visitors as to the popularity of a particular title which could lead to the book being restocked or republished in the future.

Disclaimer

We make reasonable efforts to keep the content of our Online Bookshop up to date and free of errors but we make no representations or warranties of any kind express or implied that the content of the site is accurate, complete or up to date at any given time.  We will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by the use of our site or its content.

We reserve the right to change our prices at any time especially where that change is as a result of a change in the prices of our suppliers or due to our error in incorrectly pricing an item on the site.

Where a third party provides a link on their website or social media platform to our Online Bookshop without our consent it shall not be assumed that we are endorsing such third party site or platform and we will not be held liable for any lost or damage suffered as a result of someone assuming such an endorsement.

Applicable Law

These conditions are governed by English law and subject to the jurisdiction of the English courts.