Terms + Conditions

General Terms and Conditions
Cancellation and Returns Policy
Damaged Items and Missing Components
Production Problems
Privacy and GDPR Compliance
Cookies
Other Issues
Revision History

General Terms and Conditions:

1. Colchester Homebrew Supplies (hereafter known as CHS) is a company registered in the UK with company number: 7170799 and VAT No: 985 8324 67. All references to "CHS", "we", "us", "our" refer to Colchester Homebrew Supplies Ltd 
2. CHS trades (both on-line and as a physical store that can be visited Monday-Saturday during our standard opening times) from its registered office at Unit B6, The Seedbed Centre, Wyncolls Road, Colchester, CO4 9HT. Tel 01206 854457. email: [email protected]
3. All images used on this website are for illustrative purposes only and are not to be considered part of the contract. The manufacturers may have changed the design or altered the packaging of their products since this site was developed, but you will always be supplied with the most recent product that we have available. If you have a very specific requirement in terms of physical attributes of the product being purchased (such as dimensions, colour, weight etc), rather than relying on the photograph and assuming that the goods will be suitable, you should contact us by phone or email, PRIOR TO COMPLETING YOUR PURCHASE, to confirm that the goods on offer will satisfy your need.
   
4. We accept payment for on-line orders by all major credit and debit cards (via the Worldpay Group's  secure payment gateway) or PayPal. Visitors to our store can pay by cash, credit or debit card. Please contact us by phone if you wish to pay by credit or debit card over the phone rather than via an online payment processing gateway.
5. All on-line orders will be processed as quickly as possible, dependent on the method of payment used and subject to clearance of funds, and, (excluding holiday periods) will generally be despatched within 1 working day. Our cut-off time for orders to ensure sameday despatch, Monday to Friday, is 15.00hrs. Any orders received after this time or over the weekend will not usually be processed and despatched until the next working day. Saturday is not considered to be a "Normal Working Day" by our courier network and orders processed and shipped on Friday will not normally be delivered until the following Monday (Tuesday in the case of Bank Holidays). Saturday delivery can be arranged if required, but carries a large surcharge - £20.00 + VAT per delivery as of 1/11/2010.
6. Items shipped out via our courier service are normally delivered on a Next Working Day basis. All will require a signature on receipt, so you should ensure that you are available to receive them. We can, at your request, and at no additional cost, deliver to your work location or to a friend/relative's address, though a surcharge will be applied if the delivery address is in a more expensive charging zone than your home address. If no such instructions are provided and you are not at home to receive the goods, the couriers will generally return the goods to their depot awaiting further instructions. Their standard policy is to leave a card advising you of the attempted delivery, though this is not always adhered to (especially during busy periods such as Christmas or holiday periods when replacement drivers may be covering the delivery round), and they may instead attempt to contact you by phone, email or text message in order to try and rearrange delivery or arrange for you to collect the goods from their depot if this is more convenient for you. CHS will not accept any costs you incur in collecting any such items. If they do not receive a response to their attempts to contact you, they will generally hold the goods for approximately seven days before returning them to us. In this instance, we will issue a full refund for the cost of the goods, less the original transport costs. If you re-order the goods after they have been returned to us, you will be liable for the additional shipping costs of resending the item to you.
   
   If you are unable to provide an alternative delivery address, we can ask our couriers to leave your order without a signature in a safe place of your choosing, but we would STRONGLY advise against this unless it is an absolute imperative.
   
   Should you choose to authorise us to request that the goods be left safe, either by phone, email or by completing the "special instructions" box during the checkout procedure whilst ordering from our website, you agree to accept ALL RISK associated with such an instruction. If the goods are subsequently lost, damaged or stolen, we will not accept ANY liability, nor will we accept ANY form of chargeback from a payment gateway or credit card firm. If you instigate any such chargeback procedure, rather than reporting the loss to the police and claiming through your home insurance, we will IMMEDIATELY begin proceedings through the County Court Process to recover our revenue and any charges incurred.
   
7. Items shipped via the Royal Mail will be delivered as per the Royal Mail's service standards and will generally take between 1-3 working days. Royal Mail will not generally leave your item if it is too large to fit through your letterbox and you may thus have to collect them from your local sorting office if you are not at home when delivery is initially attempted. CHS will not accept any costs you incur in collecting any such items.
   
   Should you choose to authorise us to request that the goods be left safe, either by phone, email or by completing the "special instructions" box during the checkout procedure whilst ordering from our website, you agree to accept ALL RISK associated with such an instruction. If the goods are subsequently lost, damaged or stolen, we will not accept ANY liability, nor will we accept ANY form of chargeback from a payment gateway or credit card firm. If you instigate any such chargeback procedure, rather than reporting the loss to the police and claiming through your home insurance, we will IMMEDIATELY begin proceedings through the County Court Process to recover our revenue and any charges incurred.
   
8. Our postage and delivery charges are constantly monitored to ensure that they provide the best possible value and flexibility. Our charges are made up of two elements, the postage/courier freight charges, which are passed on at cost, and an amount to cover the cost of packaging and administration. Having spent over 20 years working in the transport industry prior to opening CHS, we always strive to ensure that your items are properly packed, however we may choose to re-use/recycle packaging materials, both for environmental reasons and to maintain our low cost base. Please do not be surprised or offended if it appears your nice new brewery has been packed in low grade packaging rather than nice clean boxes that you may well end up throwing away. You can check our basic pricing matrix by viewing our "Delivery Charges" page.
   
9. We reserve the right, at our expense, to change your chosen delivery option to a faster/more secure service, or one that we consider more appropriate for the item chosen. In the event that our preferred delivery method is less expensive than your chosen option, we will refund the difference through your chosen payment gateway.
10. As CHS also operates as a "live" shop, there may be occasions in which an online order is placed for an item which has become out of stock before we have had an opportunity to update the online stock levels. If this is the case, we will contact you via phone, text message or email to ask your instructions before progressing with the remainder of your order. CHS will not routinely substitute any items without your permission. Even with your permission, CHS will only ever substitute items with items of equal or higher value.

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Cancellation and Returns Policy:

1. CHS does not supply goods "on approval". Processing an order, packing the goods and arranging shipment via our couriers takes time and incurs many expenses on our part in terms of payment processing charges, packaging materials, administration etc.
   
   Please be ABSOLUTELY sure that you want the goods before placing an order. If you are in doubt as to the suitability of any items, please contact us by phone or email to ensure that it will be suitable for your needs. Items can easily be removed from your shopping basket at ANY TIME until the point of processing your credit or debit card payment.
2. Cancellation of the order prior to shipment:
   
   If, after ordering, you decide that you no longer require an item, you can cancel any part/all of your order at ANY TIME up until the point that CHS despatches the goods to your specified delivery address. You should contact us immediately by phone to determine whether or not the order has already been despatched. CHS will not accept cancellations prior to shipment by email or SMS text messages as, during busy periods, we may not see messages sent in these formats until after the goods have been shipped. If the goods have not been despatched by the time you contact us, CHS will either cancel the entire order or remove the item you do not require prior to shipping the remainder of the order.
   
   If you have paid by credit or debit card or by paypal, CHS will issue a refund to cover the cost of any items cancelled and any reduction in transport charges as a result of the removal of an item/part of the order. In the event of a complete cancellation prior to shipping, CHS will issue a refund for the full value of the goods and shipping costs, but reserves the right to make a small administration charge (£2.00 as of 16/11/13) to cover any PayPal or payment gateway processing costs it has incurred in accepting the payment or processing the refund.
3. Cancellation of the order after shipment:
   
   Under the terms of the Consumer Contracts Regulations (2013), if, FOR ANY REASON AT ALL, you wish to cancel your order AFTER receipt of the goods, you can do so within FOURTEEN DAYS of receiving them. You should contact CHS by phone or email to confirm your decision to cancel the order. You should then return the unwanted and UNUSED item/s AT YOUR EXPENSE, in its original shipping packaging to CHS's trading address (as shown above) within FOURTEEN DAYS of notifying CHS of your decision to cancel the order.
   
   In the event of the full order being returned, a full refund of the purchase price will be issued, including our original transport charges. In the event of a part of the order being returned, a refund will be issued up to the value of the returned item/s plus any reduction in carriage charges that may have been applicable had the items not been included in the original order.
   
   Until you return the goods to us, you must keep them safe and unused. When arranging the return transport you should ensure that any returned item is appropriately packed and insured for the transport method used. We would recommend that, unless the item is small and you are prepared to accept the risk of shipping the parcel via the untracked services offered by the Royal Mail, you should use a trackable transport method such as an overnight courier service. Until we receive the returned items, you are responsible for ensuring their safekeeping, including during the return transit. If the goods go astray during the return shipping, you will be responsible for reimbursing CHS the cost of the missing items.
   
   If you are unable to arrange the transport to return the unwanted goods to us, CHS, on your behalf, will arrange for our couriers to collect the goods from you on a weekday of your choice (Mon-Fri only). If you live within our normal "England and Wales" delivery area, a charge of £15.00 will apply for this service. Additional charges may be applicable if you live in an area such as the Scottish Highlands and Islands, Isle of Man, Isle of Wight or Northern and Southern Ireland, that attracts surcharges from the courier networks.
   
4. If the return of an item reduces the order value from one at which free delivery was provided (ie over £100.00 as of 12/10/2011, but subject to change as per our current "Free Delivery" offer) to one at which transport charges would have been incurred, CHS reserves the right to reduce any refund or credit note by an amount equivalent to whatever transport charges would have been incurred had the item/s not been included in the order.
5. If CHS has shipped an incorrect item you have the right to return it and receive a full refund for its value. Please contact us to allow CHS to arrange collection of the goods at CHS's expense. Should you choose to return the goods without contacting us, CHS will NOT be responsible for any transport charges you incur, but will issue a refund for the value of the goods returned.
   
6. If, for financial reasons, it is uneconomic for CHS to collect the incorrectly supplied items, CHS reserves the right to offer them to you to use, or dispose of, as you see fit.

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Damaged or Faulty Items and Missing Components:

1. We always endeavour to pack every order such that it can withstand the rigours of handling within the various transport systems we use. Occasionally, an item may be damaged during transit. In such cases, the following policy will apply.
   
   
2. For items purchased directly from our Colchester shop, a replacement or refund will be issued if the item is returned to us, in its original packaging, as soon the damage or fault is discovered.
   
   
3. For items purchased from our website, you should contact CHS as soon as possible by phone or email to make us aware of the damage or fault and the damaged or faulty item will need to be returned to us. We will arrange to have the goods, in their original packaging, collected by our couriers at our expense. If you choose to return a damaged or faulty item without allowing us to arrange the carriage, the return carriage will be at YOUR OWN EXPENSE and we will not refund the charges.
   
   If you require a replacement, on receipt of the damaged item we will forward a replacement and will absorb the cost of shipping the replacement item/items to you. If you require a refund for the damaged item, we will, on receipt of the damaged item, issue a refund of the full purchase price of the item concerned, excluding any transport costs associated with the purchase. This clause relates purely to physical damage caused to an item during delivery or fault discovered on receipt of the goods, rather than to any mechanical/electrical faults which may develop through use, which will be considered to be a "warranty" issue.
   
   
4. If an item develops a mechanical or electrical fault within its normal manufacturer's guarantee/warranty period, it should be returned to us, at YOUR EXPENSE, for onward transport to the original supplier/manufacturer, who will either replace or repair it in line with their standard warranty arrangements. If no standard warranty period is specified, then the warranty period will be limited to SIX MONTHS from the date of purchase. As we would only return it to our supplier when their next order is delivered to us, which could be up to 14 days after you return the item to us, you can, if you wish, contact the manufacturer directly in order to obtain a faster response, though any transport charges incurred would be at your own expense.
   
   
5. If an item is found to be missing a component (including, but not limited to, for example, a washer, a yeast sachet, clearing solution, instructions for use etc) then CHS should be contacted immediately. If the item is missing simply because we forgot to include it within your order, we will immediately ship it at our cost. If the component is such that it can only have been missed off by the manufacturer/supplier (such as, but not limited to, yeast, hop sachets, clearing agents etc), we will happily supply a replacement but reserve the right to issue a charge of upto £1.99 to cover our additional postage and packaging charges.

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Production Problems:

1. All beer and wine kits display a best before date. Whilst the primary ingredients may still be usable after this date, changes to the colour or flavour may have taken place. The yeast may also be unable to rouse itself to produce a viable fermentation. If you choose to make up a beer or wine kit after its "best before date" has expired, no liability of any sort will be accepted for any problems that are encountered.
   
   
2. With most beer or wine kits, full instructions are provided by the manufacturer, some of which are more comprehensive than others. Providing that you follow these guidelines, paying particular attention to cleanliness, water quality, temperature and ingredient handling you should obtain a reliable fermentation. The manufacturers have spent vast sums of money designing and producing their kits to ensure that you receive consistent results providing you follow their instructions. If your fermentation fails or you end up with an unpleasant finished product because you have chosen to add more sugar than recommended or used a different yeast than that provided, or added an additional ingredient that wasn't within the original ingredient list, they will accept NO responsibility whatsoever for your failure.
   
   
3. If you have followed the instructions correctly and still obtain poor results, most manufacturers will request that you provide a sample for them to analyse. We can forward this to them and liaise on your behalf, but quicker results may be obtained from contacting them directly.
   
   
4. In essence, we would contact them to ask them to provide an approved sample bottle, which we would forward to you.
   
   
5. You would take the sample and return it us at YOUR EXPENSE.
   
   
6. We would return it them during their next delivery to us.
    
7. They will analyse the product and determine what course of action should be taken. They may decide that the problems stem from a production error on your part, or they may decide that there is a problem with the kit and authorise us to replace it or offer a refund. In either case, the decision is theirs to make, not ours, and we will not issue a replacement or refund for any kit without following this previous procedure and allowing the manufacturer/supplier to first determine their preferred course of action.

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Privacy + GDPR Compliance:

1. CHS takes personal privacy very seriously and collects, stores and uses personal information from its customers ONLY for its own marketing, credit control and invoicing requirements. We will only ever use this information to process your order and to make your subsequent browsing or purchasing easier and quicker. Our site is protected by an SSL certificate that ensures your data is fully encrypted and thus safe from prying eyes.
   
2. The type of information collected about you includes: your name, your address, your email address and your phone number. This may be collected during your registering an account with us (if you choose to do so) or during the checkout procedure. We will always endeavour to keep this information up to date and you can request at any time, a copy of the information held. If this information is inaccurate, we will correct or delete it promptly.
3. Any personal data collected on this site is only used for purposes of invoicing and internal marketing. It will NEVER be issued to ANY third party for any use at all, except if required and/or properly requested by any government agency or authority.
4. Any credit card or debit card details are provided to our Payment Gateway Provider (via their secure, encrypted web gateways) and not to CHS if ordered on-line. If ordering directly from our physical shop, either in person or via the phone (in which case your card details will be manually entered into our card processing terminal), CHS will not keep any record of the card details once the transaction has been entered into the Payment Gateway Card Terminal.
5. We may use technology to track patterns of behaviour of visitors to our website, such as Google Analytics or other web analysis tools. We may also generate a "cookie" which is stored on your computer unless you modify your internet browser's settings to restrict the use of such cookies. The information collected by such cookies allow web sites to recognise returning customers and are often used to "tailor" the products being displayed to the interests of the visitor. You can modify your browsers settings at any time to specify how cookies should be handled. Our site will continue to operate should you disable our "cookie", but this could cause none of your details, preferences or past browsing history to be retained.
6. We will not contact you via email without your consent, other than to confirm your order, update you on its progress or to clarify or discuss potential problems relating to your order - eg, stock level issues, if you have chosen an incorrect delivery zone/service for your items or if our couriers are experiencing problems achieving your delivery etc.
   
7. If you have subscribed to receive our newsletter, via the subscription/opt in form hosted by Mailchimp, we will, from time to time, contact you via e-mail on this specified e-mail address, to provide details of special offers and new products. You will always be given the opportunity to unsubscribe and be immediately removed from our mailing list.
8. On 25th May 2018, the GDPR regulations came into effect to regulate how companies could collect, store, retain and use their customer's personal data such as name, address, email address, phone numbers, ordering history etc. They provide all EU citizens the following rights:
   
   The right of access - you have the right to know exactly what information we hold about you and how we process it.
   
   The right of rectification - you have the right to have your personal data rectified if it is incorrect or incomplete.
   
   The right to be forgotten - You have the right to have your personal data removed or deleted without a specific reason for doing so. This is also known as ‘the right to erasure’.
   
   The right to restrict processing - an individual's right to block or suppress processing of their personal data. You have the right to block your personal data from being processed.
   
   The right to data portability - you have the right to request the personal data we hold about you for your own use.
   
   As a User, you can access, change and delete certain types of data that we hold about you within your account. For more information on what personal information you can access in your account, or to exercise any of your rights in accordance with the GDPR, please contact us with the specific request using the contact details located under the ‘Contact Us’ section of this Policy. The action taken will be free of charge, provided in an easily accessible format (if applicable) and actioned within 30 days, where possible.
9. We also operate and can be contacted via our Facebook page, but, as is common with all interactions that take place on this platform, we do not control or have any access to any data collected by Facebook, nor as to how it is used by Facebook.

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Cookies:

Whenever an internet connected computer, laptop, tablet computer or mobile phone is used to connect to a website, a small data file, known as a cookie, is created and stored on the connecting device. This cookie may be a temporary "Session Cookie" such as those used to remember which items have been placed in a shopping basket or a "Permanent Cookie" which is used to remember preference settings, browsing history, search terms etc. Session Cookies tend to expire when you log off the website or close down your internet browser, but "Permanent Cookies" place a small data file on the device, which can be read by the website the next time you log on and which can be used, amongst other things, to auto complete a checkout form and to produce the "you recently searched for/you recently viewed/you might like" sections that are common on many websites. Some permanent cookies have expiry dates and will automatically cease to be readable, others have no expiry date and will remain on the device until deleted.

Most cookies are known as "First Party" cookies and are generated by the website that you are visiting (or, more likely their hosts that store the web pages on their servers) and tend to be of the type that record your "Account Settings" ie your name, address, what you have viewed, personalisation settings you have made to "Your Page" etc. The Website owners don't have access to the data stored on the user's computer, and only the website itself will read the data held in its cookie, the next time you visit the site.

Websites may also use other cookies known as "Third Party" cookies which are produced and used by companies other than the website owner and which may store different information. The commonest of these are those produced by "tracking" software such as Google Analytics, Statcounter or Clicky which use a computers IP address to determine information such as the geographical location of the user, if they have visited the site before, which pages they look at, how long they stay, whether or not they put items in the basket, whether they log off before completing the purchase etc. This allows the website owner to try and discover if, for example, some pages are more popular than others, where its visitors are coming from in order to see if paid for advertising is generating a return or whether a "Facebook" or "Twitter" page is generating more leads, what search terms are being used to find the site and whether or not they need to adjust the way they provide their information to the search engines. Whilst "Third party" cookies of this type don't generally store any personal details of the user, they will identify the individual computer and its general geographic location and will often combine data from several different websites to enable the "Third Party Company" to build up a detailed picture of the computers browsing history.

As of May 2012, websites are required to inform their users as to what (if any) cookies are being used on their site and to obtain permission from them to continue acquiring and storing this data. This can either be in the form of an "Explicit Consent" form in which a pop up box appears which prevent further use of the site until the consent has been provided, or in the form of "Implied Consent" in which case details of cookie usage are prominently displayed and it is assumed that the site user has given their consent if they continue to use the site. The CHS website uses both "First Party" session cookies and permanent cookies generated by our webhosts to remember your details and purchase history and also "Third Party" cookies produced by Google Analytics to track visitor activity on the website. The information from these cookies is not combined in any way and neither has direct access to information stored in the other. We will interpret your continued use of our site as "Implied Consent" for us to continue to use these systems and place cookies produced by them onto your computer/connecting device.

You can take greater control of the way cookies are stored on your computer/connecting device by adjusting the settings in your Internet browser. With Firefox you can use the "Options/Options/Privacy" and with Internet Explorer you can use the "Tools/Internet Options/Privacy/Advanced" to adjust the settings to limit what cookies are accepted. If you disable the cookies from our site, you will still be able to use the site, but you may notice reduced functionality, especially when completing the ordering process.

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Other Issues:

1. All prices on this web site include VAT at the appropriate rate and are the prices that would apply were you to visit CHS at its trading premises.
2. All photographs are included in order to represent the essential nature of the items on offer via the website and in store and form NO PART of the contract between CHS and its customers. Our suppliers often change their packaging or vary the items within kits and, from time to time, we may display old images of their products until we manage to produce new photographs and update these pages. We will always send the most up to date item available.
3. All photographs are the copyright of Colchester Homebrew Supplies Ltd and must not be used for ANY commercial purposes without our prior consent and on payment of an appropriate licensing fee. Our current rates are available on application. You may, however, use the photographs for non-profit making use, in web blogs, discussion forums, school projects etc, on a free of charge basis, provided that our copyright is acknowledged and a link to our site is provided or published alongside such photos.
4. These terms and conditions are applicable from 1st December 2008 until further notice, but are subject to change at any time, without notice.
5. All descriptions are believed to be accurate, E&OE
   

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You can/should download a copy of these terms and conditions and keep it for your records.

 

Revision History:

1. 1 October 2010 - Items 5-9 of General Terms amended to include risk assignment relating to left items. 

2. 2 June 2011 - Damaged Items Policy added

3. 2 June 2011 - Production Problems Policy added

4. 2 June 2011 - CHS right to abandon goods added
5. 10 June 2011 - Privacy Policy amended
6. 01 August 2011 - Change specified free postage level to £75.00 from £70.00
7. 12 October 2011 - Change specified free postage level to £100.00 from £75.00
8. 29 April 2012 - Insertion of new clause 9 of General Terms to allow us to alter chosen delivery method.
9. 28 May 2012 - Cookie Policy added
   
10. 16 November 2013 - Clarification of Illustrative Nature of Photographs (General Terms, Section 3)
11. 16 November 2013 - Removal of cheques and bankers draft from list of accepted Payment Methods (General Terms, Section 4)
12. 16 November 2013 - Clarification of time taken to despatch goods (General Terms, Section 5)
13. 16 November 2013 - Clarification of policy re "Left Safe" parcels with Royal Mail (General Terms, Section 7) 
14. 16 November 2013 - Amendment of Cancellation and Refund Policy to comply with the DSRs
15. 16 June 2014 - Various amendments regarding the cancellation periods and refund policies dictated by the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013
16. 25 May 2018 - Changes to the Privacy Policy following the implementation of the GDPR regulations and addition of SSL Certificate to our site.

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