British Food Shopping
UK Groceries for Expats

Frequently Asked Questions

Quick Answers To The Most Commonly Asked Questions

How long will it take for my order to arrive?

Orders are delivered to most European destinations within 4 to 8 working days. Deliveries to non-European Countries take between 7 to 12 working days, depending on how long Customs take to clear your goods. (Note UK weekends and Bank holidays are classed as non-working days).

Please note that during peak times such as the lead up to Christmas, high order volumes and busy couriers can increase dispatch times. Please make allowances for such busy periods and order in plenty of time.

When will I receive my delivery tracking email?

Orders are dispatched within 2-3 days, at which point we will send you an email with details of how to track the delivery progress of your parcel(s) online. If for any reason we cannot dispatch your order within 48 hours, we will contact you on the third working day by email explaining the reason for this and giving an estimated date for dispatch.

What payment methods do you accept?

Payment Methods

We accept all major debit and credit card types including Mastercard, Visa, Visa Debit, Visa Electron, American Express, and Maestro.

We also accept PayPal, and offline payments including cheque or bank transfer. For cheques and bank transfers your order is dispatched once payment has cleared.

What currencies can I pay in?

You can shop and pay in Pounds Sterling, Euros or US Dollars. Click on the flag icons in the shop to select your preferred currency. Exchange rates fluctuate and track market rate.

Where do you deliver to?

British Corner Shop will deliver to your door anywhere in the world. Select your Country when you start shopping, and adding items to your basket. We also deliver to BFPO addresses.

In 2009, BCS delivered over half a million items to 129 Countries worldwide. Ideal for expats or sending parcels to friends and family living abroad.

Find us in this quality web directory, we are listed in the food directory.

Are my credit card details safe when using this website?

Absolutely, we use SagePay to process our online transactions using their 100% secure encrypted payment screens. British Corner Shop does not store any card details.

Do I have to register before ordering from BCS?

No, registration is optional so you don't have to register if you would prefer not to. It is free to register.

The main benefits of registering are that you can save the contents of your basket for the next time you order, earn reward points on your purchases and you can view your order history and delivery tracking details within your account. Your personal details are also saved for faster checkout.

How do I earn Reward Points?

To earn reward points you must register first, and then be logged in while you place an order. Reward points cannot be earned when paying by cheque or bank transfer.

For more information see our reward points page.

Is there a minimum or maximum order size?

There is no minimum or maximum order size, but to help you get the best value for shipping cost the shopping basket has a useful graphical indicator to show how full your current box is.

For more information see our shipping page.

I've forgotten my login, can you send a reminder?

Yes, use our forgotten login tool to have an instant reminder sent to your email address. If you have since changed your email address please contact us giving your name and address, and we will lookup your account and remind you of your login.

Can I request items not listed in the shop?

Yes, complete our product suggestion form and we will do our very best to add the product to the shop. Include your email address and we will let you know when the item has been added and is available to buy.

Can I send an order to a different address than my card is registered to?

Yes, we allow this and on checkout you can specify a different billing address to your shipping address. This is useful for if you want to send a food parcel to friends or family abroad for example.

I have changed my email address, how do I update my registered details?

Login from the homepage and click on the 'My Account' link at the top right of the screen. You can update all of your personal details here including your email address, address, phone number and even your login.

How do I quickly place a repeat order?

You must be registered first. There are two ways to place a repeat order. When logged in you can view your order history within 'My Account', and select to add the items from an old order to your shopping basket.

Alternatively you have the option to 'Save Basket' at any time during your shop, or after checkout. If you have a saved basket, you can select the 'Load Basket' option to put your saved items into your shopping basket.

You can view both your order history, and the contents of your saved basket within 'My Account'.

I registered but did not receive my verification email, what do I do?

To complete the registration process we send an automated email. This contains a link that you must click or cut and paste into your browser to verify your new free account.

This email should be with you within a few minutes of registering. If you do not receive it, first check your spam folder as it may have been accidentally caught in there.

If you still cannot find the email, contact us by phone or email and tell us your name and username. We can activate your account manually and will check that your email address is correctly entered.

I thought it was up to 30Kg per box, why can I only fit in about 25Kg?

It's not a mistake, the reason for this is that volume, weight and packaging are all taken into account when calculating how full your current box is. Your basket may indicate something like this:

Shipping Optimiser Demonstrating Volumisation

In the case above, 24.90Kg is the actual weight of the products. We also have to allow for packaging materials and the weight of the box itself within the 30Kg limit.

Moreover, a multi-pack of crisps is very light but also very bulky. A tin of baked beans on the other hand is compact and heavy. As well as a weight limit we also have to work to maximum box dimensions, so both volume and weight must be taken into account on a per-product basis.

For our 30Kg volumised fixed tariff destinations, this shipping calculation is done automatically by the website and the graphical optimiser shows you how full your current box is. It also shows how many boxes your shopping basket will fill (1), and how much delivery will cost (£9.99).

This volumisation has been worked out over many years, and tens of thousands of orders. You can be assured that we do everything we can to maximise how much we can fit into each box, to give you the best possible value for delivery.

What web browsers can I use the BCS website with?

The new British Corner Shop website has been designed to work with Internet Explorer V6+, Firefox, Safari and Chrome browsers. It will also work with virtually any other modern web browser. We just advise avoiding older browsers such as IE4, or IE5.

To check what version of Internet Explorer you have, go to 'Help > About Internet Explorer', in your browser's menu.

We also advise that you have Javascript enabled in your web browser settings (It usually is by default) to get the most from the website.

How many product lines do you sell on the website overall?

British Corner Shop stocks over 8,000 products. The total number fluctuates as we add new items and product ranges. With seasonal variations such as Christmas we can have more.

If the product you want is not available, please use our Suggest Product form and we will do our best to add it to the website.

Will I have to pay any extra costs at customs?

We do strongly recommend you check with your local customs before placing an order with us. This is just to make sure you are aware of any products that may not be allowed into the country, or any extra charges that may be added.

Many countries will not charge anything; however, as customs guidelines can vary from country to country it is always better to check before you order.