Shipping and Preorder FAQ
All orders are personally packed by Constellation and shipped from our office/warehouse in Montréal Canada.
International orders (outside North America) are sent via Air Mail with tracking. USA orders are sent by USPS Media Mail. Canada orders are sent by Canada Post or Chit Chats.
For order inquiries: mailorder [at] cstrecords.com
All our LPs are 180gram unless noted (a handful of early LP titles from 1998-2003 still get pressed on 130-140gram and appear in the store simply as "LP"). Also: Constellation is known for its high quality album artwork & packaging (we spare no expense). Also: we do not press colour vinyl (never have, never will). Also: we have never printed a barcode on a Constellation album jacket (fun fact).
Subscribers get a 25% discount on all LP + CD prices at all times (on this site and at our Bandcamp store).
Shipping rates on this site are charged in Canadian Dollars (with currency conversion estimates for information purposes only):
FLAT RATE VINYL SHIPPING IN USA
$10.00 CAD (USD 8.00)
Single rate no matter how many LPs you order
FLAT RATE VINYL SHIPPING IN CANADA
$16.00 CAD
Single rate no matter how many LPs you order
INTERNATIONAL VINYL SHIPPING
$30.00 CAD (USD 22.00 / €20.00 / £18.00 / JPY3000)
+$7.00 CAD per 450g after first 700g
Most orders of 1 -2 LPs or one 2xLP will cost $30.00 CAD shipping
Most orders for 3 LPs or two 2xLPs will cost $37.00 CAD shipping
Most orders for 4 LPs or three 2xLPs will cost $44.00 CAD shipping
*Certain deluxe art-intensive vinyl editions in both single LP and 2xLP formats do weigh more and might bump you up a pricepoint*
Ordering more than 1 LP is always a better deal. International orders in particular get the best "per LP" price when there are 2 or more LPs in the order. We also often run specials that provide discounts when you order more than one vinyl record: always check the site! But also we get it: overseas shipping is increasingly expensive but we will not outsource to a 3rd party fulfillment centre. Constellation warehouse staff are paid a living wage and personalize every order with a handwritten note and usually a random extra goodie (postcards, a poster). So we also try to provide links to independent stores (mostly in UK/EU + North America) on our release pages so you can check local prices; we fully encourage you to request and purchase Constellation releases from your local/regional indie retailer to support them and us.
CD SHIPPING: USA
$5.00 CAD (USD 4.00) for 1-3CDs
$10.00 CAD (USD 8.00) for 4+ CDs
CD SHIPPING: CANADA
$5.00 CAD for 1-3CDs
$16.00 CAD for 4+ CDs
CD SHIPPING: INTERNATIONAL
$16.00 CAD (USD 12.00 / / €11.00 / £10.00 / JPY1600) for 1-3CDs
$30.00 CAD (USD 22.00 / €20.00 / £18.00 / JPY3000) for 4-9 CDs
+ $7.00 CAD per 450g thereafter (approx 6-7 CDs per 450g)
Orders containing preorder items are held for shipping until 1-2 weeks before the official release date of the latest preorder item, unless otherwise noted.
USA customers may not be able to access immediate tracking. All USA orders generate a USPS tracking number in Montréal as soon as we process and pack them. These packages then travel in bulk across our nearby border with upstate New York and enter the USPS Medial Mail system. USPS often does not scan a package as it first enters its system but only at a central sorting hub closer to its destination.
Orders destined for Canada use Canada Post or Chit Chats.
Orders destined for the rest of the world use trackable USPS Air delivery. Large orders (e.g. 5 LPs or more) may get divided into two shipments or switched to a similar trackable Air delivery service at our discretion.
We do not ship by International Surface Mail. This service is too unreliable.
Orders arrive within 7-21 business days. International orders can often take on the longer side of this range. USPS Air shipments are handed off to the postal service in the destination country and thus subject to the efficiency of those national services in completing local delivery. In other words, these packages fly over oceans within 2-5 days, but from there, local conditions do apply.
If your package has not arrived within a reasonable amount of time, please contact your local postal office before contacting us: in most cases, your package is being held by your post office and awaiting pick-up. Postal services always claim they sent a notice to the recipient’s mailbox but often seem not to. Unclaimed packages end up getting sent back to us and the return postage is charged to us all over again—this is painfully expensive for our little operation, so please do your best to work with us on tracking any seemingly lost or delayed packages.
Additional taxes or duties (VAT, etc) may be levied by your government on your package. We take all available measures to make reasonable customs declarations to minimize this, but we do not charge sales taxes or value-added taxes on orders being sent outside Canada.
Our direct mail-order has been running smoothly for almost 30 years with many thousands of satisfied customers. Shipping issues are very rare and we will always work to resolve them. But please take note and appreciate that we are not Amazon, we prefer to use unionized postal services wherever possible, and ordering direct from us hopefully confers other intangible benefits & feels.
Thank you for buying our records. We are incredibly grateful for your support.