UK delivery
| Service | Delivery time | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Royal Mail 48 | 2 to 3 working days | Free over £75, otherwise £4.95 |
| Royal Mail 24 | Next working day | £7.95 |
| DPD Next Day | Next working day by 13:00, guaranteed, signature required | £12.95 |
Orders placed before 14:00 on a working day are dispatched the same day. Orders placed after 14:00, on weekends, or on UK bank holidays are dispatched on the next working day. All cut-off times are UK local time (GMT or BST as applicable).
Cold chain packaging
Lyophilised peptides, certain reference materials, and other temperature-sensitive compounds are packed with insulated mailers and pharmaceutical-grade gel packs calibrated to the expected transit time and seasonal ambient temperature. Our packaging is validated against typical UK transit profiles to maintain the product within its specified storage range for the duration of expected shipping.
For orders containing temperature-sensitive compounds placed during warmer months (May to September), we recommend selecting DPD Next Day to minimise transit time and reduce thermal exposure. We will contact you before dispatch if we believe the service you have selected creates an unacceptable risk to the integrity of your order, and we will offer an upgrade either at our cost or at a discounted rate depending on the circumstances.
Packaging and discretion
All orders are shipped in plain outer packaging with no branding, no product names visible on the outside, and no indication of the contents. The sender address on the label reads "NMChem Ltd" followed by a PO box number. Customs declarations on international shipments describe the contents only as "research materials" with the appropriate commodity code.
The inner packaging uses standard laboratory supply materials — bubble wrap, foam inserts, and labelled vial trays. Products are never described as anything other than research materials on any documentation that travels with the parcel, including the dispatch note, customs paperwork, and any printed labelling visible from outside the parcel.
Tracking your order
You will receive a dispatch confirmation email containing your tracking number as soon as the order leaves our facility. This email is typically sent within one hour of the parcel being collected by the carrier. If you have not received a dispatch email by the morning after your expected dispatch date, please check your spam folder and then contact us.
For Royal Mail services, your tracking number works on the Royal Mail tracking portal at royalmail.com/track-your-item. For DPD, the tracking link in your email opens the live DPD tracking page, where you can also nominate a safe place, request a neighbour delivery, or change the delivery date once the parcel has reached the local depot.
If tracking shows your parcel as delivered but you have not received it, please contact us within 48 hours so we can raise an investigation with the carrier. After 48 hours, the carrier's investigation window narrows considerably and we may not be able to recover the parcel or arrange replacement.
International and EU orders
EU orders ship via tracked international services with typical transit times of 3 to 7 working days depending on destination. Customs clearance times are not within our control and can extend the total transit time, particularly for first-time recipients in a given country. Tracking remains active throughout transit and customs handling.
The buyer is responsible for any import duties, VAT, and handling fees levied in the destination country. These charges are collected by the carrier on delivery or by the destination customs authority and are separate from the price paid to NMChem. Some compounds cannot be shipped to certain jurisdictions due to local regulations on research chemicals, controlled substances, or specific peptides.
If you are unsure whether a compound can be lawfully imported into your country, please check with your national regulator before placing the order, or contact us at [email protected] with the compound and destination and we will share what we know about typical handling for that route.
Failed delivery
If a parcel is returned to us as undeliverable — whether due to an incomplete address, repeated failed delivery attempts, or refusal at customs — we will contact you by email to confirm the correct address and arrange reshipment. Where the error was on our side, we reship at no additional cost. Where the address provided was incorrect or the recipient was unavailable across all carrier delivery attempts, a standard reship fee equal to the original delivery charge applies.