FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

We love this question... and that's why it's the first one to show! Here is why:

• Because we LOVE the hygge lifestyle! And - as a chef who loves to serve great meals - we love to serve who's engaged in wellness, and to make new friends out of them.
• Because our "store" is more like a "wellness boutique": we nurture every single product as it's the only one.
• Because we simplify YOUR experience. Buying here is fun... and wonderfully easy.
• Because - by simplifying - we focus on the essential: great fun without breaking the bank.
• Because - also by simplifying - we're NOT an impersonal super-store. We treat you like royalty. Audrey is just GREAT at it.
• And because of ALL the other things you'll learn just by reading this Q&A.

Therefore, you should buy from ANYBODY who loves to serve you. And now you know we do!

We sell and deliver worldwide. However, an important restriction is the shipping method: we only deliver to countries served by a shipping method that...

1. provides a trustworthy Tracking Number, and...
2. have a low incidence of parcel misplacements.

That said, the majority of our customers are located in the USA, Canada, Europe, Russia and all English-speaking countries. At the time of this writing though, we're successfully testing sales to other countries... and we're very excited about the experience and the results!

We are not lawyers, so probably the best answer is "Yes, to the best of our knowledge!" For those who don't know, GDPR is the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation already in place and fully enforced since May 25, 2018.

• We set our store on Shopify's platform, which is fully compliant with GDPR.
• We have a banner at the bottom of our pages stating the usage of cookies to the European community.
• We use Apps that are fully GDPR compliant.

However, ALL rules & regulations leave us in doubt about their full compliance, don't they? If we are violating something we didn't notice, please let us know and we'll correct it immediately.

It's 100% safe and secure. For starters, it's safe because BauanaHygge.com is 'Certified Secure' by McAfee (verify it by clicking on the McAfee badge at the bottom-right of the screen - sometimes hidden by the 'cookies' banner, which you can remove by clicking the 'OK' button):

• No Malware or Malicious Links, meaning this site isn't trying to infect your computer;
• Valid SSL Certificate, meaning your data is encrypted;
• No Phishing Detected, meaning this site isn't trying to steal your information.

It's also secure because BauanaHygge.com is hosted by Shopify, possibly the most secure eCommerce platform in the world:

• All credit card transactions are processed by Shopify, not by our store. Shopify pays us a few days after the transaction has been successfully concluded, and we never get to know your financial information;
• We included PayPal as our preferred method of payment, to give you total peace of mind.

We sell products related to wellness and the hygge lifestyle. The great majority are produced by sustainable initiatives, and communities of artisans and small entrepreneurs from around the world.

All products come directly from the communities, manufacturers or wholesales located in different parts of the world. The majority come from China, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, Brazil, Germany and the United States.

No, since we have no minimum orders, with very few exceptions. However, we might be considered a wholesaler to some of our customers because:

• we carry volume discounts for many of the products, and...
• our prices are much closer to wholesale than retail.

We include our products in the catalog through the following procedure:

• We look for small communities or entrepreneurs that produce products designed to enhance wellness.
• We then verify if we could count on their production - even if small - for the long run.
• We test the chosen products ourselves.
• After we approve them and we're certain to provide our customers good final deals, we start promoting them at $0 (or at a Very Low Price) to our Newsletter Subscribers.
• Finally, we'll include the items if - and only if - our Subscribers like and approve them. Simple as that!

The process is fairly long, but extremely reliable. This explains why we carry products that are fairly close to a perfect 5-star review score. Those that aren't don't pass the test for approval!

No, of course it's not a scam! We use $0 Offers (including Very Low Price Offers) as a product research and marketing instrument to:

• Test new products' acceptance. We offer the product for free (shipping & handling NOT included) in exchange for the recipient's honest opinion (non-mandatory). The opinion, whenever given, needs to be totally honest, since we'll base the inclusion of such product on our catalog if the results come up equal or above a 4.70-star average rating. It is an extremely effective and fairly inexpensive way to guarantee a catalog of high-quality products over time;
• We have two kinds of $0 Offers (or Very Low Price Offers): the ones we advertise in order to invite new Subscribers to our Newsletter (usually Facebook Ads or the little red triangle - or banner - stating '$0 Offer' on the website)... and those $0 Offers we send to our Newsletter Subscribers to whom we don't need to advertise anymore, but continue helping us create an almost perfect catalog.

In all cases, $0 Offers are designed to test and review products not yet included on the catalog. This way, new arrivals are published with a number of reviews previously given.

It's very simple. We know there isn't a REAL "free" shipping - like there's no free meal in life - don't we? The cost of shipping is ALWAYS embedded into the price.

Now, follow us on this example... We live in the US and let's say there's a $3 for shipping a certain $10 product from Japan. Our total cost would be $13. Now here comes a customer from South Africa. Shipping costs are $9 for the same $10 product (and let's suppose this is the highest shipping cost worldwide). If the store had "free shipping" it'd have to embed $9 into the price, making the new price $19... not only for South African customers but for Americans as well!

Or conceptually - if not numerically - it's even worse: it fixes the price at $16 + Free Shipping - which makes you pay more than you should have paid just to compensate for what the South-Africans are paying less!

Fair? Not really! For starters, we might lose you as a customer. And if we don't, we'd be deceiving you!

Therefore, since we all agree there's no such thing as "free shipping", we all might as well pay for our own fair share!

Don't we make sense? We might agree with you if we could get away with the following at the Post Office: "Hello lady, would you be so kind to send this parcel to my niece in Kiribati for free?" :)

And YES. Every time you see a "Free Shipping" offer on our store (there are some, occasionally) we DID embed the shipping costs into the price. If not directly, at least indirectly through our suppliers which, eventually, closed a deal with us at "price + free shipping", that we might be passing on to you.

Simplifying, "handling" is the cost of storing, picking-up, packaging, invoicing, etc. It's the cost of all the manipulation and preparation incurred by the parcel before we hand it over to the shipping carrier.

Even though it's a very complex issue for us, we managed to make it very simple for you. In essence:

• We only ship our products using shipping methods that include Insurance and guarantee a reliable Tracking Number.
• We only ship our products to countries that have a low incidence of parcel misplacements.

Great question! We have two reasons for that to happen:

1. We won't ship a product to your Country if we can't guarantee that you can follow its shipping journey through a reliable Tracking Number. Sometimes 'product A' comes from 'supplier A' located in 'country A', and 'supplier A' doesn't have a shipping agreement that guarantees a reliable Tracking Number to your Country. You'll not be able to buy 'product A' from us. 'Product B', on the other hand, coming from a 'supplier B' (possibly even located in a different 'country B') that may guarantee the Tracking Number. Then we can safely sell 'product B' to you!
2. Sometimes specific products (especially the branded products) have trade agreements with specific countries, for instance, or some other restrictions we're committed to respect in the name of fair trade. If yours is one of those countries, you won't be able to purchase that product from us.

Final Note: you noticed we don't sell anything that ships without a 'reliable' Tracking Number. Now, you may be asking yourself "What is a 'reliable' Tracking Number?" Please follow the next answer (just below) in this Q&A.

There are hundreds of International shipping solutions in the market nowadays:

• from the very cheap that don't provide any means for you to trace the journey of your product (that you already paid for!) from the seller to you;
• to the ones that trace to the millimeter but cost a fortune in return, making your purchase impracticable.

Allowing you to follow such journey is crucial to your peace of mind and to our business. The art of it is to provide you:

• an affordable shipping solution, so you can purchase our products;
• with a state-of-the-art tracking system, so you'll have the certainty the product will either reach you or you'll have your money back if it doesn't.

This is what we provide. A Tracking Number that puts all of us in control. Why 'reliable'? Well, it's reliable because ALL of us can count on it... since it will trigger the 'money back' to you with no further questions, in case of lost parcel. Why? Simple. Insurance will pay us based on that Tracking information, but we'll pay YOU way before they do!

Yes, you can... but there are certain rules for that:

• You have to return it in its original package, unharmed, unused.
• You have up to 30 days to do so, after receiving the item.
• The cost of returning it is on you. And depending on the value of the product, we suggest you use a method of shipment that includes a reliable Tracking Number.
• Send an email anyway (to Audrey, support@bauanahygge.com). We might agree to pay for the return shipping, depending on the circumstances.

Yes, we do refund your purchase. However, here as well there are certain rules for that:

• The moment we receive your returned product we'll inspect it. If approved, we refund 100% of the product's price, except shipping and handling.
• Or, if you choose to keep the product, we may negotiate a satisfactory amount for its partial refund. This would only happen in cases where we sent a different product than the one purchased, but you accept to keep it for the discount agreed upon.

Generally speaking, we accept to refund any transaction posted in good faith. However, those rare cases that show clear indications of cyber fraud will be handled by our legal department to pursue and enforce the full extent of the law. Also:

• We refund items sent to the right address but not received after 90 days from purchase.
• Finally, we DO NOT refund items sent to the wrong address. Therefore, we HIGHLY RECOMMEND you double-check the destination address when purchasing. And please, input your real and correct phone number when purchasing, since it might be the ONLY way the carrier has to get in contact with you to deliver your parcel.

No, we DO NOT refund shipping & handling. Again, we have an exception to the rule:

• We will refund the shipping & handling if it's proven (Tracking Numbers helps here) that you haven't received your item after 90 days of purchase, even though it was sent to the correct address.

Great question! Since we sell worldwide, reviews are posted in many different languages. There's an automatic translator in place that 'should' be able to create smooth translations. Well, sometimes this is not the case and we end up with weird wordings on reviews. However, we thought that as long as the 'idea' of what's being written is there, it was an ok decision to make peace with the glitch!

This one is very easy, and it's part of the story of our proud success! Quick clarification first: not ALL reviews are 5-stars. We have our fair share if 1-star and 2-star reviews (you'll find them around!), but yes, the average for each product is very close to 5-stars. Now... let's see how the whole sequence of events unfolds:

1. The decision to include a product in our catalog is straight-forward, described in details at the answer to the question above: "How do you choose the products in your catalog?"
2. When we say we only include products that have been approved by you, we really mean it! If the product receives an average of 4.70-star or above rating (out of a typical 20 to 50 reviews, with only very rare exceptions) we will include it.
3. Notice, however, that those reviews were given by Subscribers to products not-yet-published. So, the initial reviews arrive behind the scenes, BEFORE we even include a product in the catalog. These also answers the question about "How come it's a 'new-arrival' if it already shows many reviews?" - which nobody asked, but should've!

We hope this helps to understand the reasons we're so careful about choosing our products. It's simply very expensive to launch "any average product" just to find out, at the end, that our Subscribers didn't like it and we're forced to move on without including it! We're getting good at this game. We started with an average close to 20% of the products being rejected (less than 4.70 approval rate), to now staying consistently below the 2-digit barrier! Our goal is to reach 3%, and we'll throw a BIG PROMOTION to thank Subscribers for their unbelievable help, whenever that happens. Yes, a promotion for Subscribers ONLY!

Final Note: as you noticed, the store shows just a handful variety of products... only the champions that have been chosen so far! However, we have a considerable amount of products being tested by Subscribers behind the scenes, at incredible savings (sometimes even for free). Therefore, it is a good idea to subscribe to our Newsletter (which is free and you may unsubscribe at any time) and play an active role at this game. Hope to see you there!