Terms of service

1. About us

Proudly Bookish is the trading name of Proudly Bookish Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales under company number 16041621. Our registered office is 14 Springfield Garden, Stokesley, North Yorkshire, TS9 5PH. You can contact us by email at proudly.bookish.uk@gmail.com or by phone on 07960 727393.

2. These terms

2.1 These terms apply when you use our website and when you buy from it: books, other goods, event tickets and gift cards.

2.2 When you buy in person at our market stall, your legal rights and our Refund Policy apply. These terms do not, except where they say so.

2.3 If you are buying as a consumer, you have legal rights that these terms do not change or reduce. Free advice on your rights is available from the Citizens Advice consumer service on 0808 223 1133.

2.4 Our Shipping Policy, Refund Policy and Privacy Policy form part of these terms. Please read them too.

2.5 You must be 18 or over to place an order.

3. Your order and our acceptance

3.1 You can check and correct your basket before you pay. Placing an order is an offer to buy.

3.2 We email to say we have received your order. That email is not acceptance. Our contract with you starts when we email to confirm your order has been dispatched or is ready to collect. For event tickets and gift cards, it starts when we send your ticket or gift card.

3.3 We may decline an order if the item is no longer available, the price was wrong (see clause 4.4), we cannot deliver to your address, or we suspect fraud. If we decline, we will tell you promptly and refund any payment in full.

3.4 If you create an account, please keep your login details secure and tell us if you think someone else has used it.

4. Prices and payment

4.1 Prices are in pounds sterling and include any VAT payable. Most printed books carry no VAT; other items such as cards, stationery and gifts may.

4.2 Delivery costs £4.99 per order for standard delivery or £6.99 for express delivery. Click & collect from our market stall is free. The delivery charge is shown before you pay, and our Shipping Policy has the details.

4.3 You pay when you place your order, using one of the payment methods shown at checkout. We do not see or store your full card details.

4.4 If we find a price is wrong after you order: where the correct price is lower, we charge the lower price; where it is higher, we will ask whether you want to go ahead at the correct price or cancel for a full refund. If a pricing error is obvious and you could reasonably have recognised it as a mistake, we do not have to supply at the wrong price.

4.5 Pre-orders are charged at the price shown when you order. If the publisher lowers the price before publication, we will refund the difference.

4.6 Promotions may have their own terms, which we will show clearly alongside the promotion.

5. Availability, special orders and pre-orders

5.1 Many of our books are sent from our wholesale partner’s warehouse. Availability shown on our website is our best information at the time, but stock moves quickly. If a book turns out to be unavailable, we will tell you within 2 working days and offer to wait, suggest another edition, or refund you in full.

5.2 Special orders. We are happy to order books we do not hold in stock, and will give you an estimated delivery time. Special orders placed online can be returned in the same way as any other online order.

5.3 Pre-orders. We aim to deliver pre-ordered books on or close to publication day. Publishers sometimes move publication dates; if that happens, we will tell you. You can cancel a pre-order for a full refund at any time before it is dispatched.

5.4 Signed copies dedicated or inscribed to your instructions are personalised items. You cannot return them because you have changed your mind, although your rights if they are faulty are unaffected.

6. Delivery and collection

6.1 We deliver to addresses in England, Scotland and Wales. Our Shipping Policy explains the options, charges and timescales.

6.2 Unless we agree a different date with you, we will deliver within 30 days of the contract starting. If we do not, you may cancel and receive a full refund.

6.3 We are responsible for your order until it is delivered to you or to someone you nominate, or until you collect it. You own the goods once we have received full payment.

7. Returns and your right to cancel

You can return most online purchases within 30 days of receiving them. The first 14 days are your legal right to cancel; days 15 to 30 are our own extended returns window. Our Refund Policy explains how to return an item, the exceptions, and how refunds work.

8. If something is wrong with your order

8.1 By law, goods must be as described, of satisfactory quality and fit for purpose. If they are not, you are entitled to a remedy, which depends on when you tell us:

• within 30 days of delivery: a full refund;
• after 30 days: a repair or replacement, or if that is not possible or fails, a refund (which may be reduced to reflect your use, except within the first six months).

8.2 If your order arrives damaged, or we send the wrong item, please email proudly.bookish.uk@gmail.com with your order number and, if possible, a photo. We pay the return postage for faulty, damaged or incorrect items.

9. Event tickets

9.1 The legal 14-day right to cancel does not apply to tickets for events on a specific date. Our own policy is:

• if we cancel an event, you receive a full refund;
• if we move an event to a new date, you can transfer your ticket or have a full refund;
• if an advertised author or speaker cannot attend, we will tell you as soon as we know and offer a full refund or a transfer;
• if you cannot attend, you may pass your ticket to someone else at no charge, and we refund tickets cancelled at least 7 days before the event.

9.2 Where a ticket includes a book, please collect it at the event. If you cannot attend, collect it within 30 days or ask us to post it for the standard delivery charge.

9.3 Children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult at all events.

9.4 We may take photographs at events. Our Privacy Policy explains how we use them and how to tell us you would rather not appear.

10. Gift cards

10.1 Gift cards are valid for 24 months from purchase and can be used on our website.

10.2 They cannot be exchanged for cash. We replace a lost gift card only if we can verify the purchase and the card has not been used.

10.3 A gift card bought online can be cancelled for a full refund within 14 days of purchase, provided it has not been used.

11. Our responsibility to you

11.1 If we break these terms or are negligent, we are responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result. Loss is foreseeable if it is obvious it will happen, or if we both knew it might when the contract was made.

11.2 We do not exclude or limit our liability where it would be unlawful to do so. That includes death or personal injury caused by our negligence, fraud, and your legal rights in relation to the goods.

11.3 We supply goods for domestic and private use. If you are a consumer, we are not responsible for business losses such as loss of profit.

12. Events outside our control

We are not responsible for delays caused by events outside our reasonable control, such as postal disruption, severe weather or a failure at our wholesaler. If one affects your order, we will tell you, do what we can to limit the delay, and you may cancel for a full refund if the delay is substantial.

13. Buying for a business, school or library

If you buy for a business or organisation rather than as a consumer, the consumer rights to cancel in clause 7 and our Refund Policy do not apply. Our total liability to you is limited to the price of the order, except for death or personal injury caused by our negligence or for fraud. Invoices are payable within 30 days. Larger school or library orders may be on separately agreed terms.

14. Using our website

14.1 You may use our website for your own personal, non-commercial use.

14.2 You must not:

• use our website for any unlawful purpose, or to harass or harm anyone, including our staff;
• introduce viruses or other harmful code;
• try to gain unauthorised access to our website or get around its security;
• copy, scrape or extract our website’s content in bulk, by automated tools or otherwise;
• send spam or unsolicited advertising through our website;
• pretend to be someone else.

14.3 Automated agents. If you use an AI agent or other software to act on your behalf on our website, it must identify itself as automated, must not get around measures we use to manage automated access (such as CAPTCHAs), and must stop if we ask it to. We may limit or block automated access. You are responsible for any order placed by software acting for you.

14.4 Our website content, our name and our logo belong to us or our licensors and must not be used without our permission. Book covers, descriptions and extracts belong to their publishers and authors and are shown to help you choose.

14.5 Links to other websites and any third-party tools on our website are provided for convenience. Their own terms apply, and we are not responsible for their content.

14.6 We aim to keep our website available but cannot guarantee it will always be uninterrupted or error-free. We may suspend access for maintenance, or to anyone who breaks this clause.

15. Reviews and feedback

15.1 Any review you post must be genuine, about your own experience, and must say if you received anything in return for it, such as a free copy.

15.2 By posting a review on our website, you allow us to show it on our website and in our marketing, free of charge, under the name you posted it with. You still own what you wrote.

15.3 We do not publish fake reviews, and we do not remove reviews simply because they are negative. We may remove content that is unlawful, offensive or unrelated to the product.

16. Our website platform

Our online shop runs on Shopify. When you buy from us, your contract is with Proudly Bookish Ltd, not with Shopify. Shopify is not responsible for the sale of goods to you, and any claim about your order should be made to us. Shopify processes some information on our behalf, as described in our Privacy Policy.

17. Your personal information

We use your personal information only as set out in our Privacy Policy.

18. Complaints

If you are unhappy, please email proudly.bookish.uk@gmail.com. We aim to acknowledge your complaint within 2 working days and give you a full response within 10 working days. If you are not satisfied with our final response, we will tell you about any alternative dispute resolution that is available.

19. Other important terms

19.1 We may update these terms from time to time. The version on our website when you place an order applies to that order.

19.2 We may transfer our rights and obligations under these terms to another business. If we do, we will tell you, and your rights will not be affected.

19.3 If a court finds part of these terms unenforceable, the rest still applies.

19.4 If we delay in enforcing these terms, we can still enforce them later.

19.5 Only you and we have rights under this contract.

20. Law and courts

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. You can bring proceedings in the courts of England and Wales. If you live in Scotland, you can also bring proceedings in the Scottish courts.