FAQ's |
Q: Is my information secure?
I've had some
bad experiences ordering from other
websites. How do I know my information is secure?
|
| A: Our shopping cart system is hosted by Cart32. When
you add an item to your cart you will be redirected to
their site. Once you are ready to send your order you
will see the little padlock at the bottom of your
screen signaling that the transaction is secure. |
Q: Do you take Paypal payments?
I would much
rather pay with Paypal. I have like a
zillion dollars in my account right now. Can I do
that? |
| A: Yes you can! Just make sure you choose the right
option. |
Q: Can I pay over the phone?
I hate dealing
with machines. Could I place my
order
with a human? |
| A: If you want to hear our melodious voices it can be
arranged. There are two ways this can be done: You
could either place your order through our shopping
cart system and check "Call me for CC#" and let us
know what the best time to call you would be (remember
we are in EST so if you are in, say, California, make
sure you let us know so we won't wake you up!) or you
could call us during business hours (hours and phone#
under contact) but take into consideration that we
might be busy with customers and not able to take care
of you immediately so the first option works best.
Please keep in mind that even if you call us with your
card number information would still be transmitted
online through a secure server. |
Q: Can I pay with a personal check?
I know
you don't accept personal checks but I'm sending you
one anyway, okay? |
| A: No! It's not okay... We do not accept this form of
payment and we have our reasons. You'll just have to
trust us on this one. |
Q: Can I pay with a money order?
Then how
about a Money order? Is that fine? |
| A: Yes, but... (you knew there was a "but", didn't
you?). While we now accept money orders on
domestic orders (and, for clarification, that's
U.S. of A) we will only accept postal money orders.
That's the kind you can buy at your local (or any)
post office and that we can easily recognize as being
real. Any other type of money order will be returned
to you, buster! |
Q: What is CVV2?
I'm trying to place an
order and do not know
what
in tarnation this CVV2 number you speak about is.
Could you clarify? |
| A: Look at the back of your Visa, Master Card or
Discover. On the strip where you sign you will see
seven numbers. The first four coincide with the last
four numbers of your account. The last three are your
CVV2 code. If you have an American express the CVV2
is the four numbers on the front of your card on top
and to the right of your account number. |
Q: How much do I have to pay for shipping?
I
don't like to blindly pay for shipping. Come on...
How much is this going to cost me? |
| A: As you'll see in your cart: There is a flat fee of
$12.00 for domestic (that's US of A baby!) orders,
$8.00 on Canadian orders (sorry, no tracking available
because we're using first class mail to Canada) and
$40.00 for international orders. So stock up! The
more items you buy the more you save. |
Q: Wow! Your shipping rates went
up!!! Why Lord??? Why???!!!!
|
| A: I actually really hated having to
do this but we've been charging the same flat fee for
years and years as USPS kept raising their rates and
it got to the point where in many cases we were
paying more for shipping than we were making on the
items so I got a little tired of giving the
merchandise away. OK... I got a lot tired.
On the up side, we will now offer tracking for
international orders... Minus to Canada where we will
continue to send first class as we've never once had a
problem yet (famous last words, right?) |
Q: Is your inventory kept automatically?
Will I know if an item is in stock as soon
as I order it? |
| A: No you won't. Sorry. In addition to the site we have
a store so we can't keep inventory online because
something might sell out of the store for which we
have another account all together. We keep manual
inventory and we update the site on a daily basis but
there is a chance you'll order something that was just
sold out. |
Q: Why was my order (complete or partial) refunded?
I did not get my order and now there's a
credit on my statement. Whyyyyyy? Don't you want me
to have cool stuff? |
| A: Of course we do, silly! This just mean your order, or
part of it, was out of stock. I will try to write to
you every time something like this occurs but
sometimes e-mails are not received or memories fail
(yes, I'm old.) |
Q: When will my order ship?
I hate waiting
three million years for my stuff. Is it going to take
that long? |
| A: I sure hope not! We will send your order within 3
business days from when it was received (usually just
one... but just to be on the safe side...) If you
are in the US then you should get your order two to
three days after that. If abroad then four to ten
days (please note that sometimes there are delays once
the item arrives in your country and there's nothing
we or the USPS can do about it). |
Q: Could you send my order via an express service?
I decided to wait until the last possible
minute and now I need my dress three minutes from
now. Will you please send through Fedex? (or UPS, or
Express mail...) |
| A: Nope. And we make no exceptions. We have a method
and it has kept us efficient for many years and it has
kept our customers happy so we plan to continue as we
are. |
Q: Why is your merchandise so cheap?
I saw
SFX hair dye at Hot Topic for $15.00. How can you
possibly sell it for $7.50? |
| A: Because we want to make a living. Not skin you alive
(Well... maybe we do want to skin you alive but not
through price gauging). We price our merchandise in a
fair manner so that we can cover our expenses and
maybe even eat dinner on a daily basis. And while I
personally have nothing against huge corporations
Inkubus just does not happen to be one so we try to
play nice at all times. |
Q: Why is your merchandise so expensive?
Dude! You guys are thieves! I saw the
same exact Lip Service dress at Hot Topic for half as
much! |
| A: First: are you sure it was the same exact dress? Not
only a company like Hot Topic has immense buying power
which allows them to buy in huge quantities and get
huge discounts but, in addition, they are big enough
to have Lip Service and other manufacturers make
cheaper versions of the same clothing. Next time you
see the same item at a HT and then in a small
independent retailer look for the differences. They
are there. Sometimes more obvious than others. And
if you are wondering why we don't sell at the same
prices as some of your favorite eBay or other online
sellers: we probably have a bigger overhead. We do
not keep our merchandise piled up in the floor of some
room for our cats to use as a bed and our friends as
an ashtray. We have a building to pay for, phone
lines, DSL, electricity, heating bills and on and
on... Oh, and we like to eat and clothe ourselves
too! :) |
Q: Do you accept returns?
I need to return
something. What now? |
| A: Please refer to our policies
. |
Q: How do I know you are trustworthy?
I have
been burnt oh so many times. Are you going to take my
money and run? |
A: Much as we would enjoy it we won't. We are an
established business. We've been around since 1997.
Probably one of your friends know us or you can always
Google us and find out.
Oh... And we are accredited by the Better
Business Bureau with an A rating :) |
Q: Do you have an actual store?
Rumor has
it that you had a store in Miami, Fl. But now it's
gone. Is that true? |
| A: We *were* indeed located in the Coconut Grove district
of Miami and if you do a search it might show that we
are still there but we are not. We have since moved
to Marlborough NH where we have a better and more
beautiful store! |
Q: Do you have a paper catalogue you can send me?
I wrote so that you would send me a
catalogue but you did not. |
| A: That would be because we do not have one nor is one in
the plans. |
Q: Do you wholesale?
Why are my wholesale
inquiries being ignored? |
| A: Because we do not wholesale, as it is clearly stated
in our contact info. We are, however, working on a
line of clothing and when we are ready to sell it
wholesale we will make an announcement. |
Q: Could you please give me info on your vendors and
on how to open my own business?
I'm planning
to start a business pretty much identical to yours so
I insist you send me all your contacts and tell me all
that you have done over the last few years to have a
successful business so that I may compete with you but
not have to do any footwork (after all, you have
already done it. Why should I do it too?) |
| A: Believe it or not I have gotten MANY e-mails that,
while not in these exact words, ask for this type of
information. For obvious reasons I do not answer
these. While I do sincerely wish you the best of luck
if you are embarking into your own business venture I
really have no desire to do your work for you. I have
plenty of my own!!! (Heck! I could use some free
help myself, now that I think about it...) |
Q: Do you give discounts when asked?
There's this little Catherine Coatney
dress I really like but I can't afford it. Could you
give me a break? Maybe sell it to me for under what
you paid for it? Pleeeaaaaseeeee??!! I would look
real good in it! |
| A: Aaaahhhh.... NO. Really. This is yet another
type of e-mail that will go ignored. Much as we love
what we do we are, after all, running a business and
not a non-for-profit organization. If there's
something you can't afford we suggest you join our
mailing list and wait until we announce a sale or look
for said item on the various auctions sites out there
or write to another retailer asking for a break in
price and maybe they like that better than we do.
Although I dream of clothing every person out there in
Gothic Finery I would also like to keep my home and
car just as much as you want to keep yours :) |
Q: Do you need models?
I'm an alternative looking
girl/boy and all my friends say I'd make a wicked
good model. Could I do modeling for you? P.S: I
live
about 3000 miles away from your store. |
A: The models you see on our website
are mannequins, friends, relatives, employees or all
of the above.
We often (very often, indeed) get e-mails asking us if
we need models. All we have to do to be lucky enough
to get the services of these good looking souls is to
mail them thousands and thousands of dollars worth of
merchandise that they will keep in exchange for high
quality digital photos (what a bargain!) While we
appreciate their enterprising spirit we do not honor
these requests.
Because of the high volume of such questions we
have no choice but to place these e-mails in the "will
ignore" pile.
Sorry... |
Q: Why is your store called "Inkubus"
Come
on! Fess up! You are all about certain band(s),
right? |
| A: When we first open in Coconut Grove, Fl. in 1997 we
started as an art gallery. We were going to call
it "American Gothic" after the Grant Wood painting
but there was another business nearby called "Gothic
Treasures". Then I decided I would call it after a
certain Henry Fuseli painting except that, for the
life of me, I could not remember the name. My friend
and then partner, fresh from Italy remembered the name
in Italian: "L'incubo" (The nightmare). One thing led
to another, we changed the c for a k thinking
ourselves very artsy and... Voila! |
Q: Why Marlborough, NH???
Of all places in
the world why would you reopen your store in
MiddleOfNowhere, New Hampshire? |
A: If I had a penny for every time I've been asked this
I'd have a buck and a half... At the very least.
It's a long story... So get a cup of cocoa and pull
up a chair... Once upon a time, I decided to move
(part time, bubba) to Dublin, NH so I figured I had to
find a place to store my merchandise because I have
four dogs, five cats and a messy husband so my house
was out of the question. First I found a "lovely"
church for sale, *really* cheap but, soon enough, I
found out why it was so cheap and went to plan "b": a
wonderful one room schoolhouse. I made an offer that
was accepted but the owner (who has, as of this
writing still not found a buyer, over a year later...)
had one condition: we had to close on the sale the
next day. Since that was physically impossible we
withdrew our offer. By now I was obsessed with
finding a good location... Not just a warehouse
space. Then I found our current location which had
had several incarnations as a pizza restaurant (at one
point appropriately named "One Star Pizza"). So I
went from wanting a place for storage to wanting a
store that was going to be open by chance or
appointment. After the removal of many walls, rat
skeletons, etc, we were left with with a big space
which I was going to have divided in two so I could
rent half and keep half. But, as it will happen in
sagas such as this, after kissing the frog and seeing
it turn into a prince, I felt the place was too nice
to divide and kept it all for myself (yes... For
those of you who have been in, that's why you have to
go through all those doors)... then it seemed a shame
to be opened in such a random way so, after the former
manager of my store in Coconut Grove agreed to move
from wild and wooly Kendall to a more bucolic
existence in Southern N.H Inkubus became, once again,
a bona fide full time brick and mortar store. We are
in a wonderful town, surrounded by great neighbors
(Don't forget to go by Jitterbeans for
your coffee fix after you shop with us!) and, after
all, isn't that what it's all about?
UPDATE! As of 04/07/06 We now own Jitter
Beans as well! Woo-hoo! Our plan is to keep the café
and expand the store. Stay tuned... |
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