Seller FAQs | The Hat Circle – The Hat Circle by X Terrace

Once you have sign up a membership package, your membership will remain active for 12 months. You must request your membership to be downgraded before the end of the 12 months if you no longer wish to continue your package. Membership upgrading is available at anytime - in your seller panel under Profile > Membership Plan > Click on +Change Plan. If you upgrade during the free trial period, the free trial will end immediately and you will not start another free trial.

You can cancel without charge at any time during the first 30 days of your membership (the Trial Period). After the Trial Period, you agree to pay monthly instalments for at least twelve (12) months (365 days) after the 30 day free trial period. You may request to deactivate your membership within the Trial Period to obtain a full refund. Request to deactivate membership must be made by writing to THC at member@thehatcircle.com. After the first 12 months of payment you will be able to cancel at anytime and will only be charged for the remainder of that month.

Under Profile > My Account, scroll down to 'Delivery days'.
Delivery days = Number of days you need to ship the order - e.g. 3 days.
Delivery method name = The name of the courier that you use - e.g. UPS.
Delivery time = Number of days the order will take to arrive - e.g. 5 - 10 days.
Other information = The locations that you ship to - e.g. Ships to: Europe, USA, Australia. (Watch the shipping zones tutorial below to learn more)
Return days = Number of days a customer has to log a return - e.g. 14 days.
Refund days = Number of days you need to process the refund - e.g. 14 days.
Other policy = Your returns policy - e.g. No returns and refunds for sale items.

If you are setting your shipping costs by weight, for the weight under 'Shipping details' (in variant details), do not enter the actual weight of the product. The weight entered here is used to calculate shipping costs, and is related to the size of the box that you will ship the hat in. This is also known as the 'dimensional' weight. To calculate the approximate dimensional weight in grams (g) multiply the height x length x width of the box in centimetres (cm) and divide by 5. e.g. For a box 25 x 25 x 25 cm --> 25 x 25 x 25 = 15625 --> then divide by 5 --> 15625/5 = 3125 g. Please read the below questions on shipping zones and shipping rates to understand more about how the weight is used to calculate shipping costs.
At the end of the product listing form there is another field for weight - you can enter the actual weight of the product here.

We understand that there are many occasions that your hat would be suitable for, however each product can only have one category selected. In order to maximise the visibility of your hats when customers search the site we have limited the categories to hats for special occasions (e.g. wedding, Royal Ascot, Goodwood, etc.) and hats for everyday use.

We understand that there are many subtle variations of colours that could describe your hats, however each product can only have one colour selected. In order to maximise visibility of your hats in searches we have used colour names that can describe a broad range of colour variations. Our advice is to choose the main colour of your hat when selecting the colour.

Photos of hats should be taken against a plain background or be professionally staged. For the best display, the image should be cropped so that it is square (max size 1024 x 1024 pixels, less than 5 mb). If the first image (the cover image) does not meet the requirements it will need to be clipped to remove the background. Your membership includes a limited number of free image clipping credits (the same as the number of products you are allowed to sell). If your listing is not approved because the of cover image you will have 24 hours to upload a new image before we perform the clipping. It is recommended that the hat is photographed on a model rather than a mannequin.

THC provides a clipping service for cover images if required. Any cover image that requires clipping can be clipped by THC at a cost (£2.00 per image at the time of writing, this amount may be subject to change without warning depending upon suppliers costs). Please contact us at member@thehatcircle.com if you would like your product images to be clipped.

Once you have listed an item on your profile, you may need to wait for THC administration team to approve your listing. Your product will be displayed once your listing has been approved. If your listing is not approved you will receive and email notification explaining the reason(s) the listing was not approved so you can make changes.

You are required to complete the 'Hire terms & conditions' in your profile (Profile > My Account) if you are providing a hat hire service on THC.
Watch the video tutorial on adding hats for hire.
1. Under Products > Product listing, Add new product and select 'For Hire' product type. Complete the usual steps adding product name, description, custom fields.
2. Under 'Variant' click add variant, make the variant title the hire period you want to offer (e.g. Hire for 3 days), add the price for hire (not including deposit), select 'don't track inventory', and add the shipping weight (for calculating shipping cost). Click save and you will be back at the 'edit product' page.
3. Go back to 'Variant' and add a variant for the deposit and remind the customer to add to their cart (e.g. Deposit - add to cart after you have added hat hire), enter the price of the deposit, un-check 'charge taxes', select 'don't track inventory', and un-check 'requires shipping'. Click save, and return to the 'edit product' page.
4. Again under variant, if there is a variant named 'Default title', click on Action ... and delete it.
5. You will need to wait for your product to be approved by THC admin before moving to the next step.
6. Under 'Variant' next to the hat hire period click Action > Add booking. This will redirect to the booking app.
7. Under the 'Availability' tab, select 'Group days'. Number of days is the same as the hire period (e.g. 3) and the 'Product units' must be 1.
8. Complete the other fields as you require and then click save in the top right corner.

If a customer wants to return an item you must notify THC admin as soon as possible, so that we can log the return in the system. When the item is returned, and you accept the return (in line with your return policy), then the refund will be processed. You will need to authorise the refund in your seller panel. Read more about returns and refunds below.

Sellers are required to mark "fulfilled" (button at the end of the order page) once the item has been shipped and fill in courier and tracking information for the buyer to track. Please be aware that sellers will get reviews from the buyers, THC encourage sellers to pack well and include a small note to enhance buyers shopping experience. Speedy shipping will be an advantage.

We recommend that you choose up to 3 different box sizes that can be used to ship all of your hats, this will make it much easier to enter the shipping rates. For example, you might use small (25 x 25 x 25 cm), medium (40 x 40 x 40 cm), and large (60 x 60 x 40 cm) boxes. The shipping rates must be set by weight. In the case of hats, where there is a lightweight item in a relatively large box, the actual weight will not apply, you will need to calculate the volumetric or dimensional weight (DIM weight). This takes into account the amount of space that the box will take up when being shipped. Each courier has their own calculation for converting size of box to volumetric weight. An approximate calculation you can use is to multiply the length, width, and height of the box (in cm) and then divide by 5 to get the volumetric weight (in g). For example for a 25 x 25 x 25 cm box: 15625 / 5 = 3125 g.

The Hat Circle is an international marketplace for selling and buying hats. This means that your customer could be the same country as you, or they could be anywhere in the world. To make sure that the correct shipping rate is applied when a customer buys one of your hats, we have set up shipping zones. These zones are single countries and groups of countries for which you can set different shipping rates. For example if a milliner and buyer in the United Kingdom are both in the United Kingdom shipping zone, the shipping rate will be quite low. If the milliner is in the United States shipping zone and the buyer is in the Australia shipping zone, the shipping rate will be much higher.

Watch the video tutorial on 'How to set up shipping zones'.

By default, shipping by price is set up to our 11 core shipping zones which are: ‘United Kingdom’, ‘Ireland’, ‘France’, ‘Germany’, ‘Spain’, ‘Italy’, ‘Switzerland’, 'UAE', ‘USA’, ‘Canada’, ‘Australia’, and ‘Rest of Europe’. You can change the shipping cost and shipping zones whenever you want in your shipping configuration.

You will need to set the shipping rate for each size of box for each shipping zone that you choose to ship to. You will need to contact your courier to find out the approximate cost of shipping each box size to each shipping zone. For each shipping zone, enter the dimensional (DIM) weight for each box size and the shipping rate that you will charge. (The weight must be entered as a range, so make sure the range includes the dimensional weight that you have worked out for that size of box, for the example above the range could be 3000 g - 4000 g as this includes the calculated DIM weight of 3125 g). Once you have set up your shipping rates you can just enter the volumetric weight as the item weight under 'Shipping details' when listing your product and the shipping rate will be calculated automatically at checkout.

Watch the video tutorial on 'How to add shipping weight ranges'

Sellers are responsible for their own policies regarding refunds, exchanges, and returns. You are expected to clearly state your policies regarding returns and refunds in your shop policies, including: Whether or not you accept returns; The time frame in which you may accept a return; Who will pay for the cost of return postage for any items that are sent back to you. If you enter into a transaction with a buyer that is located in the European Union, you are subject to comply with the EU Directive on Consumer Rights.

Sellers shall take measures to guard against 'wear and return' situations through the use of prominent, non-replaceable labelling that allows the buyer to try on the product unhindered, but that would need to be removed before general use. As such the seller may reject a product for return if it is not returned by the buyer in a new and unused condition. i.e with the labels still attached in their original positions (we advise you to take photographs of the labelling before shipping the product).

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