Our first ever online shop is open!!

The 2017 DOP Calendar - our third one

Here are a few bits of info which you may find useful:

1. Where can I find the shop?

It will be in two places - the Dyfi Osprey Project website and the Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust website. We have two 'physical' shops (at our Welshpool office and DOP) so we will combine products from each shop in one online store. It won't matter from which site you enter the shop - it will look and work exactly the same.

2. What kind of items will be for sale?

We'll have around 20 products to start with. The 2017 Calendar obviously, and a selection of other stuff - post cards, greeting cards, pin badges (four in a set - Monty, Glesni, Ceulan, Blue 24, also available individually), coasters, DOP baseball cap (you too can look like Alwyn), fridge magnets, binoculars, DOP Jute (hessian) bags and books - including Iolo Williams' brand new book "Wild Places: Wales' Top 40 Nature Sites". These will be available as soon as we get our first consignment later on in November - we've asked (nicely) for Iolo to sign them too!

We have four really lovely pin badges at £2.50 each

3. What will the postage be?

UK postage and packing is always a tricky issue as costs vary so much depending on what you order. So, we've looked at what other wildlife organisations do and we've decided to have one fixed price for UK addresses of just £3, regardless of the order size.

This is cheaper than many other organisations and we're trying to do shipping at cost price, averaged out - i.e., no mark-up.

International shipping is hugely complex as some countries are more expensive to send to than others. The easiest thing for us to have done was to just have the online shop available for domestic folks only - but we didn't want to exclude anyone - we never do!

Subsequently, we've built a system whereby the cost you pay is dependent on weight of your order and the country you're in. Again, these are at cost price (Royal Mail) to us, so no mark-up.

Due to the devaluating pound at the moment, currency rates are at their best for over 30 years if you're buying from another country!

At the moment these are the approximate rates:

£10 will cost you around €11
£10 will cost you around $12.50 (US)

This recent devaluation of the pound corresponds to a saving of around 20% compared to pre-June (Brexit) exchange rate levels.

Please note also - you may order items as gifts for others, you just input the delivery adress of where you want the items to go at the end of the checkout process.

4. How do I pay?

You can pay via two ways.

Credit and Bank/Debit Card: you fill in your details in the usual way etc. We use Stripe as our credit card payment processing company - one of the safest out there with some of the best fraud prevention software there is.

Paypal: simply pay using your Paypal account if you have one.

Sorry, we can't accept cheque orders.

5. How long till I get my stuff?

We aim to get your order to you in the UK within a week of you placing your order - it will usually be sooner than this.

We are a tiny organisation, and only one person will be doing all of this! The processing, packing, admin and endless journeys to Machynlleth Post Office! Once we have shipped your order, you will receive a confirmation email to say that your stuff in on its way to you.

International - same as above really but add a few days obviously. Generally, the further away you are, the longer it will take. Around 10-12 days should be the absolute maximum, even for Ken ordering his calendar in New Zealand.

Bag yourself a bargain - you won't have to wait too long..

6. How about mugs?

We won't sell these online just yet as they will be difficult to ship without breaking. We want to start off simple and then gradually build up, so we may sell the mugs in the future, once the spike for calendars and other stuff subsides.

7. Any other items you've got planned?

Oh yes. Iolo's new book will be for sale as soon as we get hold of some (sometime in November) and we plan on adding other stuff too as they become available.

8. Out of stock?

Against each item in the shop you'll see a number - this is the amount of that item we have left. We'll try our best to restock items as soon as possible so that we don't run out, but this is difficult to do sometimes.

We can't order too many of any item as we don't have anywhere to store them. This shop is being run out of a bedroom with just enough space, other than for stock, for one person and a laptop! (ed: and cake)

9. I live locally..

You can pop in to Cors Dyfi to buy a calendar (all other stock has been removed). We are not always there however, so ring first before you pop down - 01654 781 414

The calendars will also be available to buy at the cafe in the Corris Craft Centre later in November.

The calendars and some of the non-osprey items will also be on sale at our wonderful new Welshpool office shop.

10. What if there's a problem with my order?

We've sold nearly 3,000 calendars to date (2015 and 2016) with very little problems, hardly any really. However, if your one of the extremely unlucky ones and encounter an issue, either reply back to your confirmation email, contact us via the contact form, or ring us at the above number.

That's it! All the profits from the shop will go towards funding DOP in 2017 (we get no external funding, we rely on your donations and shop sales) and other wildlife conservation in Montgomeryshire.

We hope you enjoy the shop, we'll keep you updated on Facebook and Twitter -  and please allow us a few days grace at the very start please as we'll no doubt have a lot of orders to process.