Terms, Conditions & How to Order

Needle Sports is a United Kingdom of Great Britain (UK) independent retailer based in the Lake District in Northern England. If you need to reach us, please email us on info@needlesports.com.

We always aim to reply to emails within 24 hours. If you haven't heard from us by then it is probable that the email hasn't got through. In that case, please ring us rather than email again.

You can call us on 017687 72227 (International +44 17687 72227) or fax us on 017687 75593.

Or you can write to us at:

Needle Sports,
56 Main Street,
Keswick, Cumbria,
CA12 5JS,
UK.

For more information about us please click here.

All our prices are in UK pounds sterling GBP (£ - this symbol may not show up on your screen or may show up as a question mark - ?).

For orders made from the UK, 20% VAT (Value Added Tax - approximately 16.67% of the total tax inclusive cost shown) is included in the price of most items. Books, maps and some other items are currently exempt.

If ordering from outside the UK, once you have registered your address, each time you log in, the prices will be shown without VAT.

Although you can buy most items off our website as a Guest with no need to register, Registering has many advantages.

• You can store addresses for repeat orders.
• Your order history is stored.
• We can contact you if there is a product recall.
• PDF guidebook downloads will only work if you register.
• If you are a customer from outside the UK you will see prices displayed without UK VAT.

When registering, your main address or Invoice Address must be the address that your payment method is registered to. If it is not then we will not be able to process the order.

You can create as many different Delivery Addresses as you wish. Each delivery address can be given a 'Nickname' which only you will see.

Please include the Name of the Recipient within the delivery address if that person is not you.

If you are sending someone a Gift and do not wish the invoice to be included in the parcel, you can request us "Please don't include the invoice with the goods - please email it instead" in the special instructions box as you check out.

Rest assured that your details will never be revealed to another party except for the purpose of processing your order.

Please note that our website may place "cookies" on your computer to help create your order. If you do not wish this to happen please do not tick the "Remember Me" option.

Making a purchase is very easy. Imagine you a browsing around our shop with a shopping basket. You can put anything you like in the basket but you do not make a final decision on what you are going to buy until you reach the counter. This site works in the same way. Simply choose the quantity required and click the "Add to Basket " button next to any item you wish to purchase. Each item you pick will be added to your imaginary basket which can be viewed at any time by clicking the word "Basket" in the green line towards the top of the page.

• By highlighting any item in the basket at any time, you can alter the number selected or delete the item.
• A running total of the cost of your purchases is kept.
• When you are ready to buy, click the "Checkout" button and have your credit or debit card ready.
• NB Please keep an eye on your emails in the days following your purchase, as we may email you regarding your order.

Cookies etc: The Needle Sports website only uses cookies which are essential to process your order and to give customers the option of signing in to our newsletter. We do not use any marketing cookies. You will never receive automated emails from us soliciting 5 star reviews or reminding you that you looked at a pair of boot laces online but have yet to buy them, and our email newsletter is only ever sent out to those who have opted in to it (please scroll down on the home page if you wish to do this). We will never pass your details on to third parties for any reason other than to deal with your order or enquiry. Please see our Privacy Policy & Cookies Page for more information.

Stock Levels: Stock Levels are indicated for almost all items. Whilst every effort is made to keep these as accurate as possible they will not be entirely so for several reasons. These are: a) The computer may be lying. b) Some-one else may have ordered the same item just prior to yourself. c) Some naughty person may have stolen it.

However, most items, especially books and maps etc, are obtainable very quickly. Clothing though may be a bit hit and miss as virtually all outdoor clothing is seasonal. This means that it has to be ordered up to a year in advance and there is usually limited (or even no) further stock available thereafter.

If an item is showing 0 or 1 in stock, don't let that stop you ordering, but if you need the item fairly quickly it would be best to ring us first to make sure that we have it or can get it.

Back Orders: Our website is set to allow 'Back Orders' for many products that we don't always have in stock - this is because there are many items such as guidebooks that we only keep one in stock of and other such things that are usually obtainable fairly readily. The exception to this rule is clothing which is nearly all seasonal. If you "back order" any item, we will contact you if your order is likely to take longer than 14 days to get to you. If you order something that is shown as in stock and we can't actually find it in the shop, nor get a replacement, we will contact you straight away. For many items, such as clothing where we do not allow back ordering, you have the option to receive an email alert when that item is back in stock.

If you order in the UK by a paid for shipping service we will try and contact you by phone in the first instance, otherwise we will email.

Overseas customers will be contacted by email.

Boots: All our boot sizes are in UK (7, 7.5, 8 etc) or European Sizes (41, 42, 43 etc). These are different from USA sizes. Boot sizes vary from manufacturer to manufacturer and even between different models from the same manufacturer.

Clothing: Clothing sizes where given are often in inches (eg 24"). One inch = approximately 2.5cm. There are links to size charts for all our clothing manufacturers at the end of the description for each item. The clothing sizes S, M, L etc vary enormously in actual size from one manufacturer to another and even vary between items from the same manufacturer. The best rule is if in doubt do not order! Increasingly UK manufacturers are using the sizes 8, 10, 12 etc for women's clothing. These are different from the American women's clothing sizes. To distinguish them we write them as UK8, UK10, UK12 etc and US8, US10, US12 etc.

We are sorry but due to problems with fraud we do not take orders over the telephone.

If you have any questions or would like a recommendation, please either give us a call (017687 72227) or email us (info@needlesports.com) to discuss. We are always happy to chat about our products.

The only Vouchers and Voucher Codes we accept are our own Gift Vouchers which can only be bought from our website or in our shop.

Websites claiming to offer Needle Sports discount code vouchers have no agreement with us, are probably fraudulent, and are definitely not to be trusted.

We accept most Credit and Debit Cards (not American Express - sorry). We also accept PayPal.

Goods are charged at the rate that applies at the moment our bank processes the order, not at the moment you place it.

Your credit card information is sent over the internet via a secure encrypted service which is run by Opayo one of the most respected on-line card payment facilitators available.

We do not hold your credit card details at any stage and they are not held in clear text on any web site.

If back ordered items are likely to be out of stock for a significant time but you still require them, we can refund the cost of those items and then contact you for payment when they come into stock.

We regret that we no longer accept Cheques for mail order items. This is because they involve considerable more work and cost to process than credit or debit cards. Also that you have to wait a week for them to clear, and that there is the problem of having to write a cheque and post a refund if part of the order cannot be fulfilled. All of this is time-consuming and completely needless in an age of Debit Cards.

We consider our contract to you to be at the point that we ship the goods and we reserve the right to cancel any order placed and refund the money to your card account. We are most unlikely to do this unless the item is no longer available, the item is mispriced, or we suspect that you may be engaged in some sort of fraud or other illegal activity.

Please see our page on Returns for full information on our returns policy and where you can download a Returns Form. Please note that we do not refund postage for returns (either outgoing or incoming) unless the item is in our opinion obviously faulty and you have contacted us first about it.

While every effort is made to maintain the information on this website as accurately as possible, mistakes can and do occasionally happen. If you are aware of any error on the website we would be grateful if you could email us at info@needlesports.com with a link to the page that it occurs on as well as a short note as to the nature of the error.

If we have mispriced a product we will inform you and give you the option to cancel the order.

If information about a product is substantially incorrect we will refund the product if you return it to us and also the cost of returning it to us, but we cannot accept liability for any further costs that may be associated with that misinformation.

EU: Sorry, but we are no longer able to send orders to the EU. As from December 2024, we are unable to fully comply with the requirements of EU General Product Safety Regulations (GPSR) which involve more red tape, time and money that is justified by the volume of orders that we used to do with the EU. We can only apologise to our EU customers and say that if the situation changes in a positive way then we'll be delighted to start shipping to the EU once again.

Ukraine: We are very sorry but we are not currently accepting orders, as deliveries by our carriers have been suspended. We hope that you win this unjust war soon and that normal life will be resumed as much as is possible.

Russia & Belarus: We regret that due to the current sanctions against Russia and Belarus incurred as a result of Russia's invasion of the Ukraine, we can no longer accept orders for shipping these countries. We apologise to our friends and fellow mountain lovers for this as we realise that they probably have little say in their country's foreign policy.

For the Rest of the World: We send orders out from our shop in the UK.

Payment: We accept online payment by by credit card, debit card or PayPal. Delivery must be to the same address that the payment method is registered to. Once we have received your order we may contact you for further confirmation that you are the cardholder as this is sometimes recommended by our bank. We regret that we are unable to take orders over the phone. Nor do we do accept orders where the delivery address is an International Forwarding Agency or Freight Company, and such orders will be cancelled and refunded.

Taxes: For all non-UK delivery addresses, you will not be charged VAT (tax) by us. It is important to note that you will be responsible for paying all import duties, taxes and charges when your parcel arrives in the destination country. You will be contacted by the parcel carrier for payment when the charges are due. If for any reason, you do not pay the import charges and taxes, or you refuse to receive your parcel, the parcel will be returned to us by the carrier. In these circumstances, when we receive the parcel, we will refund the cost of the goods, less any costs incurred in transporting your parcel. If you send back any items from outside the UK, we will not be able to refund any taxes or fees that you paid on original import of the goods. You should contact the tax authorities who collected the tax for a refund.

Delivery Cost:  For heavier or larger parcels, delivery cost will be estimated at checkout. Once your order has been received, we will confirm the final cost by email usually within 48 hours of receiving your order. The cost may be more or less, or the same as estimated.

How will my parcel be sent? We will use a Royal Mail or courier service which will need a signature for upon receipt. It is worth noting that some items will be sent in a box for protection during transit so the shipping price at checkout may reflect this. An example would be a sleeping bag weighing 1.6kg which may fall into the 2kg+ shipping price. If we are out of stock of one or more items, we will contact you by email to let you know your options.

Delivery Time: For delivery in Europe, we expect your order to arrive 4-14 days after ordering and 5-21 days for the rest of the world. Please consider that you may need to allow for extra for delays in customs or for bad weather/strikes etc. so do not order if you are running to a deadline. If we need to contact you about your order, we will do so by email.

Returns and Refunds: You are welcome to return any unwanted items from your order to arrive here within 30 days after you have received them. All items must be unused, in a brand new, clean condition with labels attached. All payments are refunded in GBP so please be aware that the exchange rate since purchase may have changed. This means that your refund amount could be more or less than your original purchase amount. For all non-UK orders, you are responsible for paying postage costs to return any item, even if that item is faulty. We will not be able to refund any taxes or fees that you paid on original import of the goods. Please take all of this into account when ordering, and consider buying this product from an official stockist in your own county where possible.

Faulty Items: If you believe that you have received a faulty item or there is an error with your order, please contact us by email info@needlesports.com.

For full details and further information, please read our Terms & Conditions and Returns Policy.

The Channel Islands The Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey are not part of the UK and do not have to pay VAT. Our website should deduct the VAT at checkout. If by any chance this has not happened it is probably because you have selected the United Kingdom as your country instead of the Channel Islands. If correcting this doesn't solve the problem then please contact us and we will refund the VAT on your order.

Over the Counter: Personal callers at our shop who are members of the British Mountaineering Council, Mountaineering Scotland, Mountaineering Ireland, or of an affiliated club, and can show us a valid membership card, are eligible for a 10% discount on all purchases except for books, maps, DVDs, discounted items and certain low margin goods - the latter include most electrical items but also some climbing gear and clothing - please enquire about any item you are interested in and we will let you whether it is discountable or not. We do not give discounts to other clubs or organisations.

Mail Order: Discounts are not available on mail order as, with free UK postage, and many of our items already heavily discounted, we do not give discounts except on substantial orders. Please email us if you are considering placing an order over £1000 in value.

BFPO Delivery

We routinely send orders to British forces overseas. If you wish to make a purchase, you must comply with current BFPO weight limits for your location and use the following address format at checkout

Name: SERVICE NUMBER, RANK and NAME,
Address Line 1: UNIT or REGIMENT,
Address Line 2: OPERATION, BARRACKS or CAMP or RAF STATION or NAVAL SHIP (if applicable),
Town/City: BFPO number,
Postcode: BF1 ***,
Country: UK.

***The postcode Format entered at checkout must adhere to the standard UK format postcode of six characters, starting with BF1. You can check your postcode here British Forces Post Office Locations.

BFPO and VAT

Those stationed outside the UK may be able to claim a VAT refund from us. If your location is eligible please;

1. Complete your order online using the address format instructions above.
2. Email us immediately after making your order to confirm that your BFPO address is eligible, and ask for a VAT refund.
3. We will refund the VAT when processing your order.