General Tips

Purchasing_

All prices are in Canadian dollars.

We use PayPal's secure ecommerce-platform as our merchant account provider which allows us to accept most major credit cards. You do not need a PayPal account. You can choose to pay with credit or bank card without registering with PayPal. In order to process your order, please contact us and we will process it for you. In our experience, and the nature of fine art purchases, is usually best supported by manually order process, and many orders are fulfilled in person so you may see your artwork in person at the time of purchase.

For those paying with established PayPal accounts set-up with your local currency, currency conversion is performed by PayPal. We have found PayPal to be both convenient and quite competitive in its exchange rates. If you are using a credit or bank card, currency conversion rates are set by your card provider.
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Taxes_

Good News! No orders from Robertson Gallery are currently charged any sales tax, whether they are international or domestic. However, please be aware of the following proviso, particularly if you live in Canada.


Updated July 2010
The Province of British Columbia implemented the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) in July 2010, which combined the old sales tax structures of Provincial Sales Tax (PST) and Goods and Services Tax (GST) into one system.

The Robertson Gallery currently qualifies under the Canada Revenue Agency's (CRA) definition of "Small Supplier". This volume-based definition excludes us from the requirement to collect HST. As a result, all purchases currently made from the Robertson Gallery exclude sales tax of any kind. However, should we trigger the CRA requirements for charging HST, then this policy will have to change.

If we have to begin charging HST in the future, we expect to have plenty of notice on the website, and certainly you would always be notified at time of checkout, but we reserve the right to collect HST if required. If and when HST-registered in the future, Canadian residents would be charged 12% Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) on all artworks and supplies. International orders -- basically shipping to anywhere outside Canada and its Territories -- would be free of sales tax per current law. If and when we should become HST-registered, the law could change by that time and we would have to abide by whatever changes may be in effect, but again, any tax change that might occur would always be indicated to you at time of checkout.


So if you are considering a purchase, please be aware that as of July 2010, all orders are currently sales-tax free, saving you 12%. International sales are not currently subject to HST in any case, and are expected to remain tax-free into the future.
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Shipping_

Shipping rates are based upon order value and ship-to location. We try to keep our shipping prices as low as possible, and have found this to be the simplest way to assess prices. Prices include insurance where available.

Orders may ship from our Vancouver, BC or Phoenix, AZ locations. We may use Canada Post, US Postal Service, UPS or Fedex, depending upon where-from and where-to the order is shipped to, as each provider's price varies widely on these factors. We will ship the equivalent of Priority, which we find to be the best balance between cost, time and handling. If you wish to have your shipment sent sooner, please contact us so we can determine the precise difference in shipping cost. This change will have to be processed manually.


We use the following shipping zones:

Canada Domestic
Includes all of Canada, including all Provinces and Territories.


United States 48 Domestic States
Includes all US 48 domestic states and the District of Columbia.


US Alaska and HI
Includes Alaska and Hawaii.


International
Includes US Territories, Europe, Asia, Oceania, the Caribbean and most other countries in South America, the Middle East and Africa. Please contact us if you cannot fulfill your order directly on PayPal. International shipping times can vary widely. Please allow sufficient time for goods to arrive.


Download
The simplest way for us to offer you these products is to email image files to you, or at your request, CD-ROM via traditional mail. We have use automated digital downloads before, but have found that the small delay in processing your order manually and emailing you provides a much more secure and trouble-free delivery. If ordering MS Paint postcards, please contact us and we will fulfill your payment and email the postcards right away.
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Shipping Rates_

Prices shown are in Canadian dollars. Here's a basic currency converter here for you to see approximately how much your order will cost you in your own currency (use the Browse All link to search for currencies not shown on that page).

Order amounts below $15 CAD are intended for downloads. If you are ordering physical goods and downloads together, and the total does not qualify you for free shipping, we recommend ordering the downloaded goods separately to ensure the amount does not increase your shipping rate.

If your order is over $500 CAD, we offer free shipping to Canada and US, and a $40 shipping credit to all other locations.

Unlike many e-vendors, we have tried hard to keep our shipping prices as minimal as possible. Because of the value of the art you are purchasing, we must package the shipment thoroughly and insure it, which typically adds cost. This is necessary as so many of our purchases are one-of-a-kind works that if they should become damaged, are irreplaceable in their original form. However, by choosing carefully which shipping provider we use, we can usually keep shipping prices lower than if we chose a single provider.

We also use shipping price ranges which do not "just happen" to fall slightly below the next shipping threshold, possibly denying you the opportunity for free-shipping for lack of a couple dollars more order value, or just nudging the order into the next higher shipping bracket. Most purchases usually fall comfortably within the middle of a range, which helps ensure that you, our customer, are getting the best shipping value we can offer.
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Copyrights_

Your Rights
When you purchase a work of art from us, whether an original work, giclee, print or download, you have the right to use that work for your own personal enjoyment in your home, workplace or give the originally purchased work as a gift, or to sell the originally purchased item to a third party, just as you would any asset you have purchased from any vendor. For example, if you purchase 1 giclee, you may later sell that 1 giclee. If you purchase 1 digital postcard computer file, you may later sell that 1 digital postcard computer file once, and no longer use that file yourself because you have sold the one copy you originally purchased.

You have not purchased the right to reproduce or make more copies of the art, and then sell or gift those copies to others. This activity would be considered illegal distribution. While this may be common sense to the majority of our good customers, some people strangely feel they have purchased all legal rights to a work for a few dollars. You haven't. If you did, every other person who purchased a copy could make the same claim against you. It would be ridiculous. You are only purchasing a copy for your own personal use.


Non-Copy Policy
Duplication of Robertson Gallery works for any reason is strictly prohibited. This includes but is not limited to making your own prints, photographs, or duplicating works through other electronic or mechanical means, or distrubuting by electronic means computer files that contain images our works in any format -- proprietary or otherwise. See the Exclusion for Insurance below for an exception to this policy.

We know the vast majority of our customers are honest and do not intentionally wish to breach such conditions. We hope you understand that like music or video, electronic files are especially easy to copy and that we must apply such a non-copy policy. For the subset of those who breach the terms of this agreement, we may use all legal remedies available to us to recover losses for unauthorized copying.

We have tried to price our electronic post cards very competitively, and hope that our customers will find that it is easy and fast to comply with this policy. You are supporting a small studio, and by doing so, are helping us to make it possible to bring you more and new choices all the time.


Exclusion for Insurance
We will grant all of our customers a license to make a photograph of their purchased original works, giclees and physical prints for insurance purposes, provided such photographs are made solely for the purpose of providing proof to your insurer that you actually own the work. Such photographs are not to be used to display, sell, gift or otherwise duplicate the work. This exclusion does not apply to downloaded purchases.


Multiple-User License
If you wish to obtain a multiple-user license, please contact us and we can give you a competitive quote.


Media Requests
Photographs of Robertson Gallery works for use in media such as television, the internet and newspapers are allowed with the written permission of the Robertson Gallery. Please contact us to obtain such written permission in advance of using such photographs.

Exception: You may use up to three images from the http://robertsongallery.com website for news reporting purposes without first obtaining such written permission, but you must place a caption beside such images crediting the Robertson Gallery, and if practical, a hyperlink to the website. For example, a caption might right something like, "Photo courtesy of robertsongallery.com".
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Problem Resolution_

We pride ourselves in our practices and art works. If something should go wrong with your order, such as damage during shipment, please contact us as soon as possible. If you are signing in person for your shipment and it is clearly damaged, do not accept the shipment. Let the carrier know the product is damaged, and contact us so we can file an insurance claim.

It is unusual, but if you should have another type of issue or question that affects your satsifaction, please contact us so we can find out more and work with you. Small problems like paint or varnish chips are rare, but we can usually correct these quickly and easily if they do occur. We want you to be pleased with your order.
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Returns and Warrantee_

We try very hard to photograph our art under balanced light, and correctly describe it on our website so that misunderstandings do not occur in the first place. If you are not certain about the general qualities of a certain work, please contact us before making your purchase so we can answer any questions first.


Sales Policies
Most sales are final. We must adhere to such a policy because, like music or video, a work of art can be easily damaged, unscrupulously copied, altered, or otherwise abused in ways that are beyond our control.

As a result, we cannot accept a return because the work is slightly under- or over-size, or the colours appear different than on the website, or is printed or painted on the wrong type of media, or for other reasons where the art is in good condition but does not meet a certain assumption made by the purchaser. We encourage you to ask us any questions you may have before making your purchase.


Accepted Returns
We will accept returns for the following reasons. However, you must contact us for an Return Merchant Authorization (RMA) first.

• Purchase has been damaged during shipment. We will require the original shipping container to allow this type of return so our insurer can inspect the damage.

• Purchase is clearly different from what invoice indicated (wrong product shipped, invoice description details are clearly in error from what was shipped, etc.)

• Items that fall within the terms of the Warrantee category below.

Return Shipping
We will provide you a shipping invoice with your RMA. If you have not received an RMA, we cannot accept responsibility for any return, whether we receive it or not.


Commission Work
Commission-based work requires a significant degree of input from the purchaser, but also a significant degree of creative latitutde from the artist. Once a commission work is finished, should it not immediately meet to your satisfaction, we permit one re-touch of the work at no additional cost to you.


Warrantee
Though quite rare, a canvas can split due to imperfections during its manufacture. We will warrant all canvas-based purchases within one (1) year of the original shipping date against damage due to splitting caused by natural imperfections in the canvas. Please note this warrantee does not cover purchases where the canvas has been improperly handled or abused, such as through improper mounting technique or subjected to a hard blow. In order to process such a warrantee, we may ask to see the damaged work, and will choose to refund or replace (in the case of a print) the work at our discretion. Canvases that show signs of stretching, distortion, depressions or other types of abuse cannot be included within the terms of this warrantee.

Certain other items such as picture frames or artwork that we have mounted for you are waranteed for a period of one (1) year of the original shipping date. This warantee includes breakage of picture frame junctions, stapling of canvas to picture forms, mounting of a canvas within a picture frame, or other services we may have performed during the preparation of the artwork.

Virtually all of our customers are very happy with their order, and we want you to be too. See the Problem Resolution section above for how we can help you with a problem should it occur.
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