Shipping

Alives — Shipping

Almost every question about a parcel is really a question about whose job something is. So this policy is sorted by who does what.

  • Alives
  • You
  • The carrier
  • Nobody

We do

Alives — everything up to the carrier's hands
  • Days 1–5

    Pack your order and hand it over

    Your order ships within 1 to 5 business days of the order date. Business days are Monday to Friday; weekends do not count toward any figure on this page.

  • The moment it ships

    Email you a shipping confirmation and tracking number

    Sent to the address you used at checkout. If your order ships sooner than the 5th business day, that email arrives sooner too.

  • Day 6

    Escalate a slow order without being asked

    If your order has not shipped by the 6th business day, we already know and it has already gone to our fulfilment team. Please allow 3 more business days, inside which we will email you an update with your tracking number.

  • Past day 30 or 35

    Investigate, and come back to you

    Beyond 30 business days (US) or 35 (international), the matter stops being yours to chase. As a small business the last thing we want is a customer worrying about an order, so delays this long are monitored and escalated to our fulfilment manager. We will follow up by email within 2 to 5 business days.

  • Send your order in more than one parcel, where that is faster

    Orders with several items are sometimes dispatched separately, and each parcel then carries its own tracking number and its own email. A parcel arriving without everything you ordered is not a missing item — check whether a second tracking number reached you before writing in. Every parcel in a split order still arrives inside the windows below, and you are never charged twice for the shipping.

  • Offer the shipping options, and calculate the dates

    Free Shipping is delivered within 7 to 25 business days. We process and ship it by the most cost-effective methods available, which is what makes it free — so it can sit a little longer before it moves, and it will still arrive inside that window.

    Expedited Shipping is seldom offered, because keeping the product itself affordable depends on not routing every order that way. Where it is available you will see it at the shipping step in checkout, and delivery then runs 7 to 15 business days in the US and 10 to 20 business days internationally.

    Delivery estimates are the projected shipping date plus the transit duration. Transit is set by the shipping speed you select and counted in business days, excluding Saturdays and Sundays unless a weekend delivery option was available to you at checkout. Holidays are factored in.

    The date that counts

    Where you see an “order within” countdown, that is the window to order inside to get delivery by the date shown, and that date can still change before you finish checking out. Your order confirmation email carries the confirmed delivery date, and where any estimate elsewhere disagrees with it, the confirmation email is the one that counts.

The carrier does

Once the parcel leaves us, this is out of our hands
  • 7–20 US · 10–25 international

    Carry your parcel, in business days

    Delivery times are 7 to 20 business days for the US and 10 to 25 business days for international shipping, counted from the day the parcel ships rather than the day you ordered.

  • Scan it — or not

    Inside those windows, tracking that has not updated is expected rather than a fault. Four ordinary reasons:

    1. The first scan happens late. Often not until the parcel reaches a regional hub near its destination. During peak periods, when carriers process parcels in large quantities, that takes longer — and until that scan the carrier has not confirmed receipt.
    2. The first scan happens at delivery. On some routes it is the only scan there will be.
    3. The tracking database lags. The record updates behind where the parcel actually is.
    4. Some shipments are not trackable at all. Standard International especially. It will still arrive by the 20th or 25th business day at the latest.

    Track your order

You do

Three things, and only when they apply
  • Day 5, if no tracking email

    Check junk and spam first

    If the 5th business day has passed with no tracking number, that is where most of them are. Search your inbox for “Alives” too. If it is genuinely not there, email support@tryalives.com and we will resend it.

  • Past day 20 or 25

    Allow five more business days

    If tracking still has not changed once you are past the window, give it an additional 5 business days. Parcels that run long typically arrive on or shortly after the 20th or 25th business day.

  • Write in with your order number

    Quoting the order number, and the address you ordered with, is what lets us answer on the first reply rather than the third.

Nobody can

Honest limits, so you are not waiting on something impossible

  • Speed up a parcel already with the carrier

    Once it has been handed over, neither we nor you can accelerate it. Contacting us on day 12 does not move it.

  • Make a scan appear

    Scanning is the carrier's process. A quiet tracking page inside the window is not something either of us can change, and it is not evidence that anything is wrong.

  • Change the address once it has shipped

    Before dispatch, write to us immediately and we will try. After it has gone to the carrier, it is fixed.

Every window, in one place
  • Before it ships — every order1–5 days
  • Standard delivery — US7–20 days
  • Standard delivery — international10–25 days
  • Free Shipping — either region7–25 days
  • Expedited — US, when offered7–15 days
  • Expedited — international, when offered10–20 days

A question about a specific order is answered fastest by email. Send your order number to support@tryalives.com and we will pick it up.

Imogen Adeyemi

Customer Care Lead — Alives®

Returns · Track order · Contact