Shipping policy

Everything we make is dispatched from Jaipur. This page tells you when your order leaves us, how long it takes to reach you, what it costs, and what happens if something goes wrong on the way.

Every figure here is one we can hold on a bad week, not a good one.

The short version

Where you are	We dispatch in	Delivery takes	You pay
Metro cities	2 Working Days	2 to 3 days	Free on prepaid
Other cities and towns	2 Working Days	4 to 5 days	Free on prepaid
Remote areas and North East	2 Working Days	Up to 7 days	Free on prepaid
Cash on delivery, anywhere	2 Working Days	As above	₹150 handling
Custom orders	3 to 4 weeks	As above	Free on prepaid

 

Delivery time is counted from dispatch, not from when you place your order.

1. Words used here

•   "Working Day" means Monday to Saturday, excluding public holidays in Rajasthan.

•   "Dispatch" means the moment your parcel leaves our facility with the courier.

•   "Delivery" means the date the courier records your parcel as delivered.

•   "Custom Order" means any piece made to your drawing, description or specification, and any piece engraved or altered to your instruction.

2. When we dispatch

Orders placed before 9:00 PM are processed the same day. Orders placed after 9:00 PM are processed the next day.

In-stock pieces are dispatched within 2 Working Days of order confirmation.

Custom Orders take three to four weeks in production, from the day you approve the design, before they are dispatched.

When it takes longer

Two things stretch dispatch, and we would rather tell you now than apologise later:

•   Festival periods. Between Navratri and Diwali, dispatch can take one to two days longer. We put a notice on the site when that is happening

•   Made-to-order pieces. Where a piece is being made rather than picked from stock, the product page says so and gives its own timeline

Cash on delivery orders

We may telephone you to confirm a cash on delivery order before we dispatch it. The 2 Working Day clock starts from that confirmation. If we cannot reach you after reasonable attempts, we will tell you and may cancel the order.

3. How long delivery takes

These are estimates from our courier partner, counted from Dispatch:

Destination	Estimate	What affects it
Metro cities	2 to 3 days	Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune, Ahmedabad
Other cities and towns	4 to 5 days	Most Tier 2 and Tier 3 destinations
Remote areas and North East	Up to 7 days	Limited courier frequency, longer trunk routes

 

These are estimates, not guaranteed dates. Weather, festivals, local disruption and courier network load all move them. We publish the range we can usually hold rather than the fastest we have ever managed.

If a delivery is running late we would rather you heard it from us. Section 9 explains what we do.

4. What shipping costs

How you pay	Shipping	Handling
UPI, card or netbanking	Free, anywhere in India	None
Cash on delivery	Free	₹150

 

Why cash on delivery costs ₹150

We would rather explain this than leave you guessing. Cash on delivery costs us more in three ways: the courier charges a collection fee, the money takes longer to reach us, and a significant share of cash orders are refused at the door and travel back to Jaipur at our cost.

The ₹150 covers that difference. We could have spread it across every price instead, but that would mean customers who pay online subsidising those who do not. This way the charge sits where the cost sits.

Cash on delivery is available on orders up to ₹8,000. Above that, we ask for prepayment.

No charge appears after checkout

The total you see before you confirm payment is the total you pay. Shipping, handling and tax are all shown in the order summary before you commit, itemised so you can see what each one is.

We do not add a charge at the door, we do not pre-tick paid add-ons, and we do not charge for gift packaging.

5. Tracking your order

You receive a tracking link by email and WhatsApp the moment your order is dispatched.

Tracking can take up to 24 hours to start updating after dispatch. That gap is normal — the parcel is usually already moving before the system catches up.

If your tracking has not updated for 4 days, message us. Do not wait for the estimate to pass.

6. How we pack, and why it matters

Every order is:

•   Photographed and video-recorded as it is packed

•   Weighed and the sealed weight logged before it leaves us

•   Sealed in tamper-evident packaging

•   Insured in transit for its full value

This is not ceremony. If a parcel arrives with something missing or wrong, these records let us establish what happened and resolve it the same day rather than arguing about it.

Check the seal before you accept

Please look at the packaging before you take delivery. If it appears opened, damaged, resealed or tampered with, refuse the parcel and message us the same day. We will send a replacement straight away and take it up with the courier ourselves.

This is the single most useful thing you can do, and it takes five seconds.

Signature or OTP

Delivery requires a signature or an OTP sent to your registered phone number. Please keep that number reachable on the delivery day.

7. Where we ship

We ship across India.

We do not ship outside India at present. When that changes we will say so here.

If your PIN code is not serviceable by our courier, checkout will tell you before you pay rather than after.

8. Getting your address right

Please check your address and phone number before you confirm. A missing flat number or a wrong digit is the most common reason a parcel does not arrive.

If you spot a mistake, message us immediately. We can change the address any time before Dispatch. Once a parcel has left us, the address cannot be changed.

Where a parcel fails to deliver because of details you gave us, section 10 explains what happens.

9. If your parcel is late, stuck or missing

Message us if:

•   Tracking has not updated for 4 days

•   Your parcel has not arrived within 3 days of the estimate

•   Tracking says delivered and you have not received it

Email info@carathills.com or WhatsApp [[WHATSAPP NUMBER]] with your order number. Here is what we do:

•   We raise it with the courier the same Working Day

•   We keep you updated, without you having to chase us

•   Where a parcel is confirmed lost, we send a replacement or refund you in full — your choice

•   We do not ask you to deal with the courier yourself. Our contract is with them, and yours is with us

Where tracking shows delivered but you have not received the parcel, tell us within 48 hours. We pull the courier’s proof of delivery, the delivery location data and our own packing records, and we tell you honestly what they show.

10. If your parcel comes back to us

A parcel returns to us when the address was incomplete or incorrect, when nobody was available after the courier’s attempts, or when a cash on delivery parcel was refused at the door.

What happens then

We contact you as soon as it arrives back, and you can:

•   Have it re-delivered. Where the parcel came back for a reason within your control, re-delivery shipping is payable by you

•   Cancel the order. We refund you, less the shipping cost we actually incurred

If we cannot reach you within 7 days of the parcel arriving back, we cancel the order and refund you on the same basis.

Repeated refusals

If cash on delivery parcels are repeatedly refused or returned, we may ask for prepayment on future orders. We will tell you before we do that. We would rather have that conversation than raise prices for everyone to cover the cost.

If we cancel

Where we cancel an order ourselves — because a piece is out of stock, because of a pricing error, or for any other reason of ours — we bear our own costs and refund you in full. We do not deduct anything. The same principle applies in both directions.

11. Damage in transit

Until a parcel is delivered to you, loss or damage in transit is ours. We do not ask you to bear it, and we do not ask you to claim from the courier.

If a piece arrives damaged, message us within 7 days of Delivery with a photograph. We collect it at our cost and repair it, replace it, or refund you in full.

Risk passes to you on Delivery. Damage that happens after that is covered by our Warranty and Care Policy, which explains what is and is not a manufacturing defect.

12. Gift orders

We can include a handwritten note and gift packaging at no charge. Add your message in the notes field at checkout.

Gift orders go out without a price on the packing slip. The GST invoice, which has to show the price, is emailed to you rather than placed in the parcel.

If you are sending a gift to someone else, put their phone number in the delivery details, not yours — the OTP goes to the number on the shipment.

13. Things outside our control

We are not responsible for delay caused by events beyond our reasonable control — natural disaster, flood, strike, civil disturbance, epidemic, courier network failure, or government restriction.

Where that happens we will tell you, keep you updated, and do what we reasonably can. If a delay of that kind runs beyond 30 days, either of us may cancel the order and we will refund you in full.

This does not apply to ordinary delay. If we are simply late, that is on us and section 9 applies.

14. Your rights

This policy sets out our arrangements. It does not replace your rights under Indian law.

If an order is delivered late, not delivered, or arrives damaged or not as described, you are entitled to a remedy. We do not refuse returns or refunds in those circumstances, and we would not be permitted to.

If we have not resolved something to your satisfaction, our Grievance Redressal page tells you how to escalate. You can also contact the National Consumer Helpline on 1915, or the consumer commission where you live, where you work, or where the transaction took place.

15. How to reach us

Email: info@carathills.com

WhatsApp: +91 94628 09598

Phone: +91 94628 09598

Monday to Saturday, 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM IST. We reply within 1 Working Day.

Our dispatch address

Please do not send anything to us without contacting us first — returns and resizes are collected by our courier, not posted.

Appendix

Facts required before publication

•   [[EFFECTIVE DATE]]

•   [[SUPPORT PHONE]] and [[WHATSAPP NUMBER]]

•   Confirm the metro city list in section 3 matches Shiprocket’s actual zone definitions

•   Confirm Shiprocket’s insurance cover limit per shipment, and whether it covers full declared value

Decisions taken, and why

•   Dispatch published as Monday to Saturday, not Monday to Sunday as the fact pack stated. Courier pickup on Sunday is unreliable and a Sunday dispatch promise would be breached most weeks. Support hours aligned to the same days

•   Delivery framed as an estimate from Dispatch, not a guaranteed date from order. This is the single most common source of delivery complaints in Indian e-commerce and the framing matters

•   The ₹150 cash on delivery charge is explained rather than simply stated. ECR r. 4(1)(j) requires differential pricing to have an objectively supportable basis and to be disclosed where material. Collection cost plus return-to-origin exposure is that basis, and stating it converts a charge people resent into one they understand

•   The symmetry clause in section 10 is deliberate. ECR r. 4(1)(k) prohibits imposing cancellation charges on consumers unless the seller bears equivalent charges when it cancels unilaterally. Stating that we deduct nothing when we cancel is what makes the deduction defensible when a parcel comes back for the customer’s reason

•   Packing video, sealed weight log and tamper-evident packaging are stated as practice, matching the Returns Policy. These only work as evidence if they happen on every order without exception

Where this policy protects Carat Hills

•   Section 3 — estimates rather than guarantees, counted from Dispatch. Removes the most common basis for a late-delivery claim

•   Section 6 — the packing video, sealed weight log and seal-check instruction together form the evidence chain for empty-box, wrong-item and missing-item claims

•   Section 8 — address accuracy sits with the customer, stated before purchase

•   Section 9 — a 48-hour window to report a parcel marked delivered but not received. Prompt reporting is what makes a courier claim recoverable

•   Section 10 — re-delivery cost sits with the customer where the failure was within their control, and repeat COD refusers can be moved to prepaid after notice

•   Section 13 — force majeure, with a 30-day cancellation right on both sides

Where we deliberately did not over-reach

ECR r. 4(1)(l) prevents refusing a return or refund for late or non-delivery except where force majeure applies. A clause saying delivery timelines are not guaranteed and we have no liability in all circumstances would not hold. Section 3 therefore frames timelines honestly as estimates, while section 14 preserves the statutory position, and section 13 confines the force majeure carve-out to genuine external events rather than ordinary lateness.

Risk is stated as passing on Delivery, and transit loss is accepted as ours. This is both the legal position and the commercially sensible one — the alternative is asking a customer in Indore to pursue a courier claim herself, which she will not do, and which will cost more in reviews than the parcels are worth.

The total-price and no-hidden-charge statements in section 4 are not decoration. Adding a charge after the customer has committed is expressly identified as drip pricing under the Dark Patterns Guidelines 2023, and the ₹150 handling charge must therefore appear in the order summary before payment, not at the door.

Operational changes this policy assumes

•   Shiprocket configured with the zone estimates in section 3, and PIN serviceability checked at checkout before payment

•   Order cut-off set to 9:00 PM in Shopify, with IST timezone confirmed

•   COD capped at ₹8,000 and the ₹150 handling charge shown as a line item in the cart, not added later

•   Tracking link sent automatically by email and WhatsApp on dispatch

•   Gift orders configured to suppress price on the packing slip while the GST invoice still goes by email

•   Shipment insurance confirmed with Shiprocket, and the cover limit checked against Hero tier order values

•   A festival dispatch notice ready to publish on the site during Navratri and Diwali

For the lawyer

Worth their time: section 4 (COD charge basis and price disclosure), section 10 (deductions and the symmetry clause), section 13 (force majeure). The rest is operational.