Delivery, returns and the right to change your mind

This page says what happens after you order a printed book: when it arrives, what it costs, and what you can do if you want to send it back. The two parts before the form cover the edition you read online instead.

Who you are buying from

The seller is Symbiotic Design, Deflectiespoelstraat 6, 5651 HP Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

Chamber of Commerce number 96731222. VAT number NL005228606B35.

You can write to us at any time through the contact page, and we answer by email, usually within a few working days.

The book is printed after you order it

There is no warehouse and no stock. Your copy is made once your order is paid, by our printer, and sent from there straight to the address you gave. That is why the book leaves no pile of unsold copies behind.

It also means the first days after your order are printing days, not travelling days. A faster delivery speed shortens the journey, never the printing.

When it arrives

Before you pay, the site asks the printer what it can do for your own address and shows you every speed it offers, with the price of each one and how long it takes in working days, printing included. Those figures come from the printer at that moment, for your country, not from a table written here.

As a guide, at the time of writing a copy to the Netherlands takes between about six and thirteen working days depending on the speed chosen. Other countries differ, and the page will tell you.

Whatever the estimate, the law gives you a firm outer limit and so do we: your book is delivered within thirty days of your order at the very latest. If that ever looks impossible, we will write to you, and you may ask for your money back.

Some speeds can be followed and some cannot. The page says which before you choose, and when there is a tracking link we send it to you as soon as the printer gives it to us.

Where we can send it

We send to every country our printer serves, which is most of the world. If it does not serve yours, the site will say so while you are giving your address, before any money is involved, and you can write to us to see whether there is another way.

Outside the European Union, a parcel may meet import duties, taxes or a customs handling fee on arrival. Those are set by the country you are in, they are not part of what you pay here, and they are yours to pay.

What you pay

You pay the price of the book plus the delivery you choose. Both are shown, separately and added up, before you order, and the price you see includes VAT. There is nothing to add at the end.

Payment is through Stripe, by card, PayPal, iDEAL and other ways. We never see or keep your card details.

Changing your mind: fourteen days

You may change your mind within fourteen days of receiving the book, and you do not have to give a reason. The fourteen days run from the day the book reaches you or someone you named.

Printing to order does not take this right away. The book is a standard edition offered to everyone, not something made to your own specification, so the exception in the law for personalised goods does not apply here.

Tell us within those fourteen days, through the contact page or by email. You can use the form at the foot of this page, and you can also simply say it in your own words. We confirm in writing that we have received it.

After telling us, send the book back within fourteen days, to Symbiotic Design, Deflectiespoelstraat 6, 5651 HP Eindhoven, The Netherlands. The postage for sending it back is yours to pay.

We give you your money back within fourteen days of hearing from you, by the same means you paid with. That includes what you paid for delivery, at the rate of our cheapest standard delivery. If you chose a faster delivery, the extra you paid for the speed stays with us, which is what the law allows.

We may wait to pay you until the book is back with us, or until you show us it has been sent, whichever comes first.

You can send back some of the copies in your order, as many as you choose, not only all of them. Choose how many under Purchases and deliveries in your account, until 30 days after the printer shipped them, and we write to you with the address. If your parcel was so slow that this leaves you fewer than fourteen days from the day it arrived, you keep those fourteen days: write to us within them.

If your order reached a bulk discount and you keep fewer copies, the copies you keep are charged at the price that number of copies would have had, and the difference comes off what we give back. You never pay more than you paid.

An offer price holds only while you keep what it came with. If you send that back, the copy bought at the offer price is charged at its normal price, and the difference comes off what we give back.

The postage you paid comes back only when you send back the whole order, at the rate of our cheapest standard delivery, or when the whole order arrived damaged or misprinted. If you send back only some of the copies, it stays with us. A damaged or misprinted copy is always replaced or repaid at our cost, as set out below.

You may open the parcel and look at the book as you would in a bookshop. If it comes back damaged or used beyond that, we may reduce what we give back by the value it has lost.

If the book is damaged or wrong

This is a different thing from changing your mind, and it costs you nothing. The law says the book must be what was promised, and that right lasts far longer than fourteen days.

If your copy arrives damaged, misprinted, incomplete or simply not the book you ordered, write to us with a photograph if you can. We replace it or give you your money back, and we pay the postage.

If something goes wrong between us

Write to us first, through the contact page. We answer every complaint, and we would rather settle it ourselves than have anyone go further.

Dutch law applies to what you buy here, and that never takes away the protection the law of your own country gives you as a consumer.

The edition you read online

Symbiotic Design Framework - Digital, which used to be called the Digital Book and, before that, the Web Experience, is not posted, so none of the delivery above applies to it. It opens the moment your payment goes through.

Because it opens at once, the buying page asks you to tick one box before you pay: that you want it opened straight away, and that you understand this ends your right to change your mind within fourteen days. Without it we cannot open the book at once, so the purchase cannot go ahead, and we confirm it back to you by email. That is what Dutch law asks of us, and it is why we can open it immediately rather than making you wait a fortnight.

If anything there does not work as it should, that is a different matter and it is ours to fix. Write to us.

Several copies of a digital book

You can buy more than one copy of a digital book. If you like, one of them opens on your own account. Every other copy comes to you as a code, and only to you, so you decide who receives it.

A code opens the book once, on the account of the person who uses it. It can be used for two years from the day you buy it.

When you buy, you ask us to open your copy and send you the codes straight away. The fourteen days to change your mind therefore start on the day you buy, for every copy, and a copy can no longer be returned once it has been opened, by you or by the person who uses its code.

Within those fourteen days you can return as many unused codes as you like, from your purchases page. Only the buyer can return codes, and we give the money back the same way you paid, within fourteen days.

Several copies cost less together: 10% off from 5 copies and 20% off from 10, counting printed and digital copies of an order together. If the copies you keep would have had a smaller discount on their own, or none, they are charged at that price, and the difference is taken from what we give back. For example, if you buy ten copies at 20% off and return nine codes, the one copy you keep costs its full price, and we give back the rest of what you paid.

Presale book

Some books can be bought before the day they come out. The book's page and your cart show that day, and you pay when you buy.

A printed copy bought in presale waits with us and goes to the printer from that day. If your order also has books that can be sent now, they travel in two parcels, each with its own shipping, unless you choose one parcel that leaves from that day. Until a copy is sent you can cancel it by writing to us; if other copies of the same parcel still travel, its shipping stays paid, unless the mistake is ours. Once it reaches you, you have the same fourteen days to change your mind as with any printed book.

A digital book bought in presale is available from that day. You can change your mind within fourteen days of buying it, as long as it is not yet available: write to us. Once it is available, the purchase is final. Codes for other people work as all codes do: within fourteen days of your purchase you can return any code nobody has used yet, from your purchases page.