Category: Purple Locust Craft Blog

The Purple Locust website offers two checkout options – Stripe and PayPal. But I would urge you choose to pay with Stripe.

Why?

Because to put it bluntly, Stripe is cheaper for me. Don’t get me wrong, PayPal offers a great service, but their fees are a significant burden for a small home business that only sells handmade crafts.

Behind the scenes, there is very little difference between PayPal and Stripe. Both are PCI-DSS compliant and use industry standard encryption to protect your card details and privacy for instance.

Importantly, both services offer a reliable dispute mechanism. In the extremely unlikely event that you’re not happy with your order and we cannot resolve the issue between us, you can report the transaction to Stripe who will investigate.

Stripe even liaise directly with your bank to ensure the refund process is completed smoothly. (You can learn more about the Stripe payment dispute process here).

And when you pay with Stripe, you also have the choice of using Apple Pay or Google Wallet. Just click the logo on your screen and let your phone do the magic. Suck on that PayPal.

So before you click that bright yellow PayPal button, ask yourself, could I pay with Stripe instead?

The start of this year has been a little disappointing to say the least. So I’m announcing a flash sale to try and inject a little cheer.

From now until 10pm Sunday night, I’m offering 10% off all hand sanitiser holders and asthma inhaler cases.

Why not make a statement with the shiny metallic pink heart holder? Or maybe you could cheer up one of your kids with a fun red dragon inhaler case.

Why not buy a few to put away as gifts?

Whatever you choose, the flash sale gives you 10% off everything in these two product ranges.

As always, everything is handmade with love by me.

But don’t delay – the sale ends at 10pm on Sunday 31st January.

Due to ongoing staff shortages, Royal Mail has announced that a number of areas in the UK are likely to experience delays in having their post delivered. Annoyingly, this means your order may be delayed if you live in one of these areas.

Please take a look at the Royal Mail postcode areas listed below to see if you may be affected:

• Barking (IG11)
• Basildon (SS13-SS16)
• Braintree (CM6, CM7, CM77)
• Brentwood (CM13-CM15)
• Bristol North (BS6, BS7)
• Bury St Edmunds (IP28-IP33)
• Chatham (ME4, ME5)
• Chelmsford (CM1-CM3)
• Chingford DO (E4)
• Chippenham DO (SN13 0, SN13 8-9, SN14 0, SN14 6-8, SN15 1-5, SN15 9)
• Corby DO (NN17, NN18)
• Croydon (CR0, CR9)
• Debden (IG7-IG10)
• Enfield (EN1-EN3)
• Erdington DO (B24)
• Highbury (N5)
• Horsham (RH12, RH13)
• Ilford (IG1-IG6)
• Kirkby (L32, L33)
• Leeds City (LS1-LS5)
• Lewisham (SE13)
• Lichfield (WS7, WS13, WS14)
• Ormskirk (L39, L40)
• Scissett (HD8)
• Somerton (TA11)
• South Ockendon (RM15)
• South Woodham Ferrers (CM0 7, CM3)
• South Woodford (E18)
• Tiverton (EX16, EX18)
• Upper Holloway (N7)
• Westbury on Trym (BS9, BS10)
• Widnes (WA8)
• Wimbledon (SW19)
• Workington (CA14, CA85)

I will continue to make and despatch orders as quickly as possible (usually same day), but once the package is in the post, we are at the mercy of Royal Mail. Just because your post code is listed does not mean that your parcel will be delayed, but it is only fair to provide a warning about potential problems.

The list of affected regions changes regularly, so it may be worth keeping an eye on the Royal Mail service updates page if you do a lot of shopping online.

Click here to find out more about my delivery policies.