What’s the vibe?
Deep August sunsets, Night breeze. Your grandparent’s basement. That song you loved when you were 17 years old but forgot for a while. Walking the long way home. Nursing a HALLS lozenge when you’re not actually ill. Trusting a path in the woods. Late night call-in radio. An item someone daydreamed and gapped out while starring at during a phone call with a telemarketer. Uncertain lights in the sky. Having a productive realization about something. Your best friends cousins house you only got to see inside of once while changing out of a swimsuit, but they had the coolest rec-room. The innocence of early adolescence. Watching a plant thrive. A cat taking an instant liking to you. I began collecting wall decor while redecorating after a big move. I filled 4 of my studio walls, then I filled the rest of the apartment. Then I filled some closets. Now I’m merchandising some of these items for sale via this webstore. I have a few other ventures mapped I’d like to use proceeds from the sale of wall decor to fund, using Time Passages as a carrier and we’ll see if I can make it to that point. The name of the shop is inspired by the fantastic Al Stewart song of the same name, off an album that also caries the name. All photo’s I use throughout the website are either shot by me, or a family member.
How do you offer FREE shipping?
So I toyed with a few different options for setting up my shipping costs and I eventually came to the conclusion that it’s much easier to just factor the shipping into the price and make all shipping on wall decor FREE to Canada and the United States. My method for figuring out shipping has been tested over the past few years I worked for a company shipping home decor items of varying weight and size. At it’s busiest, I was sending out over 100 packages a day so I gathered plenty of data and experience from that. There was a long winded answer on the previous website how I came to these numbers through an equation of distance, weight and dimensional volume of the package based on a 1-5 rating and compared it against 10 different shipping locations across the continent but you’re just going to have to trust me that I’ve thought a lot about this and I’ve tacked on the bare minimum to ensure these items get shipped properly and respectfully without either of us losing our respective shirts while doing so.
How are you pricing items?
That’s a great question and the answer is a mix of things.
Firstly, the easiest thing to do is check other online sources, etsy and eBay are obvious ones. Completed listings on Facebook Marketplace are useful. Chairish.com and other vintage sellers sometimes come up when I’m deep searching the item or original print or pattern it may be based on. This gives me a general idea of “what thing’s go for” but like with anything, it varies greatly and much like collectible sneakers, vintage tee shirts or rare vinyl, the general rule of thumb is the item is worth what people are willing to pay.
Secondly, I consider the condition of the item. Everything in the website is lived in. It’s occupied somebody’s wall for some time and then possibly their basement or garage. It might be a piece that featured prominently above their “chesterfield” set or maybe it was gifted then immediately shoved in a box. Regardless, like us humans, all things carry dust and I adjust pricing based on how obvious that dust is. Dust doesn’t make you a bad or lesser person, it just means you’ve experienced life out of the box.
Thirdly, I take into consideration my choice to offer free shipping on all the decor items. This means I’ve worked in the possible loss I could take shipping a large, oversized item to British Columbia or somewhere in the southern United States. Compiling data on shipping is something I find interesting and in the shipping info above, you’ll see how I went a bit more in-depth into it.
Lastly, like any collector, I consider how much I want to let the item go. The idea of making a webshop to move some of these pieces out of my life and into (yours?) didn’t become serious into a few years after filling my space, so everything was originally brought in with the intent to hang it on my own wall. I simply have way more wall decor than I have wall right now, and that paired with the three points above factor in to the prices you see on this website.
Do you ship internationally?
Typically, no, but if you email me at timepassagesshop@gmail.com we can work something out. I’d have to mock up a custom shipping quote for you but I’m sure its something we can figure out if you absolutely needed to have that piece.
When will I receive my package?
All orders leave Guelph, Ontario via Canada Post unless otherwise note and ship within a maximum of 3 business days, but I’m usually eager to get the item packaged up nicely and out my door the same day if I’ve got the time and the order comes in early enough. I’ll send you a tracking number once its out of my hands so you can follow along.