About Us

About Us

Due to our rapid growth (over 300% in the last year, with an average of 780 shoppers daily), the Partshelf.com store started getting unwieldy.  We are moving to a "mall" concept, with a number of specialty webstores focused on a product area.  The stores share offices, warehouse and shipping facilities located in Plainfield Illinois (about 35 miles west of Chicago). 

We keep inventory.  We are not another dot.com vapor store, taking orders in somebody's basement and passing them on to a drop shipper.  If you buy from a web store that just forwards orders to distributors for drop shipment (and there are many of those), delivery can be delayed if the stores distributor is out of stock.  The only way we can be sure we can fill your order promptly is to keep inventory.  We carry a lot of inventory on Oregon Scientific products.  Keeping inventory costs us money, but it allows us to deliver reliably.  Currently over 95% of orders received before 3 PM CST ship the same  business day. 

Shipping methods. We currently ship UPS, insured, with tracking numbers, or Priority Mail, insured without tracking numbers. We prefer UPS for two reasons.  Their tracking system is excellent.  You can see the progress of your package from our door to yours.  When they lose or damage a package, they resolve the issue quickly.  With Priority Mail, the best we can get is delivery confirmation, which only tells us when the package arrives.  Delivery conformation tells us nothing if the package hasn't arrived.  Although Priority Mail is typically delivered in 2 or 3 days, it isn't considered lost for at least 30 days.  It takes seemingly forever to get reimbursement for a lost package.  We do offer Priority Mail shipping to military APO and FPO addresses.

Shipping costs.  We try to keep the costs down as much as possible.  Our shipping cost is calculated and reported to you before you finalize the order.  Calculation is based on the total weight of your order, and usually, depending on the service, the distance from our warehouse to your address.  The total shipping charge added to your order should be roughly the UPS or Priority Mail charge, the cost of packing materials (the box, padding materials and labels cost around $1.50), and a few minutes of labor expense for the packer.  We do not try to hide the labor and materials charge in the purchase price, as that results in a significant overcharge when more than one item is ordered.    

Corrections. Please note that all orders will be reviewed for correctness. Due to all the possibilities for errors in processing and hacks from outside sources, prices and shipping charges will be reviewed for accuracy and corrected (after emailing you) when necessary. The two most common problems that show up are UPS servers allowing impossible shipping choices, and customers entering "Customer Pickup" as a shipping option when they live 1000 miles away.  Believe it or not, the UPS shipping servers, which our order process gets shipping rates from, will allow you to request having a truck drive your package from Chicago to Hawaii.  The system isn't perfect.

To Contact Us:

Please note that we are a web based mail order company, not a conventional store.  Our hours are based on shipping times.  We are often out of the office finding new products or making deliveries.  By far, the best way to reach us is via Email.

Payment Information:

Partshelf.com accepts Visa, Mastercard and American Express for web purchases.  We can offer a 2% cash discount if you prefer to mail a money order.  Email us for details.   

Customer Pickup:

As our business is primarily mail order, our hours are irregular, we are often out during the day purchasing product and making Postal Drop-offs.  If you are local and would like to pick up your order, we will try to arrange a time for you to meet us at the shop.  Early evenings work best. 

Please stop by all the stores of the Partshelf Mall:

Partshelf.com
LaCrosse Technology Store
GiftnGadget.com