UKgeocachers

Postage & Packaging Costs

We have had a few enquiries regarding our postage costs.  To try and offer the best postage and packaging costs we do not have a flat rate, instead the cost will depend on the items you purchase, so that if you only buy a sticker you will not pay the same price as someone who buys a ready made cache.

You can find out how much the postage and packaging will cost by putting your items in the basket.  Then go into your basket by clicking on "Your shopping Cart Contains" and scroll down the page where you will see a box entitled "Shipping Options".

Select the country where the items will be sent, and the postcode, then click on the recalculate button.

You will then be shown the various shipping methods available and their costs.

We thought it might be a good idea to post ideas here for things you can do to enhance your geocaching experience. We'll keep adding to this list from time to time as we come across an example of best practice.

Safety First

Always carry a mobile phone with you when out caching. It can literally help to save a life if you come across a situation where assistance is required. A bonus of modern mobiles is that if you have a camera phone you can take pictures of the tracking codes of any trackables you come across to record them without the need for pen and paper.

Remember to mark your cars location into your GPSr before embarking on a cache hunt if you are in an area unfamiliar to yourself. That way, you can't get lost as you'll always be able to find your car again - even if you can't find that elusive geocache.

If you are looking inside a hole for a cache, take a minute to check the area, is there any activity from wasps etc, and it could also be worth checking the hole with a long stick first to ensure that it is not a wasps nest or something similar before you put your hand in.

And don't forget the important spare batteries for your GPSr Unit, these are always a handy item to carry.

Whilst you are walking and looking at your GPSr Unit don't  forget to watch where you are going and general awareness of people and cars around you, I have heard of several very near misses with both cars and cliffs.  It may be a good idea to check out the local area, print out a map or just go on google earth to see the type of terrain you will be walking in.

Geocoin Dipping

Ever heard of the term 'dipping a geocoin in and out of a cache'? Geocoins can be very expensive to release into the wild as you always run the risk of it being stolen or mistaken as geoswag by newbies. You might have a special geocoin that you can't bear to part with and its a shame that no-one else can enjoy it. Well geocoin dipping is the term given to carrying a geocoin on you (ie not releasing it into the wild) and dropping it into and immediately retrieving it from a geocache again when you visit it. This does two things:

1. It acrues mileage to the geocoin. This is in fact your own mileage, so you can use it to record how far you travel whilst geocaching.
2. By carrying the coin with you and not releasing it you don't risk losing it and it can be shown to other geocachers that you meet whilst out geocaching so that they can 'discover' it.

Releasing a Trackable Item

We strongly recommend that before you release anything trackable you attach something to it to say what its mission is going to be, and that it is not a trade item.  This helps people know if they can help it move, and where you would prefer it to go.  It also means that new people to geocaching will not mistake it for a trade item.

Discovering a Geocoin or Trackable Item

A new part of geocaching is being able to discover a trackable item, these items can be attached to cars in the shape of a magnetic, window cling or decal, they have a tracking number on them, just make a note of it to discover later.  You can also find these numbers of Tattoos, T-shirts, Hoodies, Patches and probably more items that I haven't discovered yet.  The idea is that you don't move it on you just log that you have seen (discovered) it.  So when you are out caching don't forget to check other cars in the car park.

Come and see us on Facebook - there isn't a lot on there yet but we are going to start posting some special offers there and through our Twitter feed. So if you use either service then don't forget to add us.

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So why should you choose us over the competition?

As a family run business we focus on customer satisfaction.  This is where high tech adventure meets old fashioned family values. If we had to sum up why you should shop with us into three bullet points they would be:

Our shop works out how much you have spent with us and applies a discount during the checkout process, this discount kicks in after only £50 has been spent (during the last 12 months). The more you spend the more you save. The loyalty discounts range from 1% to 7%. Couple this with Free Shipping for orders over £50 in the UK and you can see how you can quickly end up saving lots of money with each order you place.

Most of our orders are dispatched within 24 hours, this means you get your order as quickly as possible. Orders placed before 2pm during the week are usually dispatched the same day.

Secure payment options, great customer service and a family run business means that you will always get the personal touch from us. We are registered with the Federation of Small Businesses in the UK, registered for VAT, have a shop premises where you can come for a browse or a chat and are a reputable business.

Our contact details are available on this site including our full address and telephone number together with our VAT registration number unlike some other online shops. This is a legal requirement in the UK if trading online.

Everything here is above board - so ask yourself, who would you rather deal with. A reputable, regulated family run business or someone who deliberately tries to illegally hide their contact information?

If contact details are not available on a website ask yourself why aren't they?  This goes for all online transactions, always check out a websites security policy and privacy policy together with their contact details before trusting them with your card details.

Who are we?

We are a family of geocachers who strongly believe in the old (OK not so old) adage that states - "A family that caches together, stays together" - well it did go something along those lines. My name is Kathy and I am now disabled and can't do as many geocaches as I could in the past so I take care of business whilst my husband Ian and our two sons do the product testing - they use this good excuse to get their hands on great products before anyone else. We don't sell anything that we don't use ourselves and so we can be sure of the quality of the products we offer.

Why did we start ukgeocachers.co.uk?

We enjoy our geocaching but were a bit perturbed as to how expensive some of the merchandise can be over here compared with prices in the USA. In particular things like Travel Bugs. Since I now have a bit of spare time on my hands I decided to make the best of it, I quickly cottoned on to the fact that buying in bulk meant that it kept the costs down and so decided to do something positive and went ahead and designed this site hence starting my own business (Blue Spaniel) ukgeocachers.co.uk. My ethos has always been based on providing the great customer service that you'd expect from a family run business.

Help For Heroes Activation Codes

You can retrieve your Help for Heroes Geocoin Activation codes at:

http://www.ukgeocoins.co.uk

You can also find links on that site to other geocoin activation hosting sites.

General

The vast majority of geocoins don't ship with activation codes these days as it makes the production process cheaper therefore making the coins cheaper. Activation codes are usually retrieved by owners online on several sites.

Our Own Coins

We host the activation codes for geocoins that we manufacture at http://www.ukgeocoins.co.uk  The coins with activation codes hosted there are:

• Help For Heroes
• Trakabulldog
• Best of British 2007
• Best of British Micro
• Shropshire Way 2008
• The NW Geocoin
• SideTracked Geocoin
• Breacon beacons National Park Geocoin

Activation Codes can be retrieved from http://www.ukgeocoins.co.uk

Other Geocoins

Geocaching.com are now hosting coin codes at  http://www.geocaching.com/track/ActivationCodeRetrieve.aspx  you will need to log in to your geocaching account to retrieve the activation code.

If you are looking for the activation codes for another coin you can try one of the following:

• Oakcoins
• Coinsandpins
• Coincodes

Payment Security

Paying for goods online is a major concern for many people. The biggest fraud type in the UK is card-not-present fraud, which cost £183.2m in 2005. Using your credit or debit card online is often a worrying process as unless you are using one of the big shops you cannot guarantee the level of security that the site you are on uses.

We use third party payment providers for all of our card transactions and offer a selection to choose from. Global customers can pick from either Paypal or Nochex whilst UK customers have the added benefit of also being able to pay by UK cheque or over the phone as we have a Streamline payment terminal.

By using thrid party payment solutions we can ensure that we are not privy to your card information at any stage of the payment process as you will move from our site to either the Paypal or Nochex site to enter your payment details. Using this system we can rely on their sophisticated security measures to ensure the privacy of your data and you can rest assuresd that no-one has access to your information. If paying over the phone your card details are entered directly into the payment terminal  - we don't ever note them down anywhere for your security.

Online Payment Options

Both paypal and Nochex offer secure credit card payment systems. Most interenet users will be familiar with paypal and you can use your paypal account to pay for goods on our site or use your card details to pay for an order.

Nochex is a UK payment system similar in principle to paypal, the added benefit for you is that you can use debit cards and switch cards with this service.

Both sites use cutting edge security techniques and both are regulated by financial regulatory authorities who oversee their security measures.

Offline Payment Options

You can place your order online and select to pay via your card over the phone. This is the fastest offline payment solution that we offer, the other alternative is to pay by a UK Cheque made out to Blue Spaniel (our company name).

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