FAQ
answers to some frequently asked questions
Ordering & Returns
Yes, we do. We offer paper gift vouchers with values of C$25, C$50 and C$100. They can be ordered online and sent to the recipient of your choice via postal mail. They include a space for a personal message, so if you want us to hand-write this message onto the voucher before mailing them out, please make sure to add a personal message in the field provided on the product page. Or, if you prefer, you can leave that field blank, have the paper gift voucher sent to yourself and then fill in a personal message before mailing them or hand-delivering to your recipient yourself.
Paper gift vouchers can be spent on www.youngw.ca and they do not expire. Once the recipient is ready to use their gift voucher, they can enter the voucher code on the checkout page into the field that asks “Have a gift card?”.
Yes, we do. We offer two version of our wrapping paper: pine/gold and pine/mauve.
Specify if you would like to have your order gift wrapped on the product page or in the checkout cart. Each item will be gift wrapped with the wrapping paper of your choice, along with a matching ribbon and gift tag. When you select the gift wrap option, please specify in the field provided the name of the recipient, the name of the sender, as well as the personal message you would like to have us handwrite onto the back of the gift tag. The cost to gift wrap your order is C$2.50 (flat fee regardless of the number of items in your order).
(Photo credits: photos upper row/right and lower row/left by Madeleine Dalkie)
Not to worry, we’ve got you covered. We offer refill ink cartridges for the fountain pen included in the analog lifestyle kit, Petit1 from Pilot. Get your ink cartridges in either blue black, red or as a set of blue black + red in our shop.
Unfortunately, during the winter months (November 15 – April 15) we only ship bottled fountain pen ink by local courier within Toronto, ON, and the GTA, due to the fact that bottled ink can freeze and shatter the glass while in transit during cold weather. We do not ship bottled ink outside of the GTA between November 15 and April 15.
However, you can still order ink cartridges during the winter to all shipping destinations.
You can find detailed information about returns and refunds here.
If you receive a defective item or encounter a case of quality issues or shipping errors, please email us within 30 days of the delivery date of your order with details about the problem. Please include a photograph, the original order number, your name and email address. You can send the email to contact@youngw.ca. We will then – depending on the circumstances – either dispatch a replacement item to you, issue a refund or issue a store credit. If more than 30 days have passed since the delivery date of your order, we cannot offer you a refund or an exchange.
Upon receipt of your request, we will fully examine it and notify you via email within one week whether you are entitled to a refund. If you are entitled to a refund, we will refund the purchase price using the original method of payment.
You can cancel an existing order for any reason up until the point where you have received a shipping confirmation email from us. In order to cancel your order, please email us at contact@youngw.ca with your order number and name. We will reimburse you no later than 14 days from the day on which we received your cancellation request. We will use the same means of payment you used for the order to issue the refund.
The main reason the Young W shop features affiliate links is because there are just so many amazing books out there so that we just couldn’t resist sharing with you some of our favourites and some really interesting finds which are on our ‘to-be-read’ pile. We obviously would have loved to stock inventory for all them, but this unfortunately wasn’t possible for Young W’s limited launch assortment. We will hopefully be able to stock these books in the future. However, we still wanted to bring this collection to you via affiliate links in the meantime.
Young W will only ever feature those kinds of products as affiliate links for which we would have been more than happy to stock inventory of as well. We take just as much care and pride in selecting books recommendations for our affiliate links as we do with any books and other products we carry inventory of.
Young W’s affiliate links all link to Bookshop.org (both the US and UK versions of Bookshop.org). Bookshop.org is an online book retailer supporting local independent bookstores. We also offer affiliate links to IndieBound, which is an initiative of the American Booksellers Association supporting independent bookshops. IndieBound lets US customers (and Canadian customers in certain regions) search for titles at their local bookstore based on their postal code.
Please note that we do not earn any affiliate commissions from the links to BookManager (“SHOP LOCAL / Buy this book from a Canadian independent bookshop”). We simply wanted you provide with an easy link to local Canadian bookstore, because we want to ensure you shop local, shop indie and support our local bookshops.
For more information, please see our Affiliate Disclaimer here.
We accept credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover) and PayPal. You can also use PayPal to pay via credit card.
Charges will show up on your credit card statement as YOUNGW or YOUNGWTORONTO.
All prices on www.youngw.ca are listed in Canadian Dollars (CAD).
When you enter your address during the checkout process, please make sure to enter your billing address exactly as it appears on your credit card statement. Otherwise the credit card number entered may be declined.
Shipping
We deliver to shipping addresses in the following countries:
Albania, American Samoa, Andorra, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Barbados, Belgium, Benin, Bermuda, Bonaire, Saint Eustatius and Saba, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Bulgaria, Canada, Cape Verde, Cayman Islands, Chad, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Curaçao, Czech Republic, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Finland, France, French Guiana, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Gibraltar, Greenland, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guam, Guatemala, Guyana, Hungary, Iceland, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malawi, Malta, Marshall Islands, Martinique, Mauritius, Mexico, Micronesia, Moldova, Monaco, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Niger, Norfolk Island, North Macedonia, Northern Mariana Islands, Norway, Oman, Palau, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Reunion, Rwanda, Saint Barthélemy, Saint Lucia, Saint Martin (Dutch part), Saint Martin (French part), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, San Marino, Seychelles, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tunisia, United Kingdom (UK), United States (US), United States Minor Outlying Islands, Vatican, Virgin Islands (U.S.) and Zambia.
If you would like to have your order shipped to one of the following countries or regions, please contact us for shipping rates before placing an order:
Åland Islands, Antarctica, Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Equatorial Guinea, Guernsey, Heard Island and McDonald Islands, Isle of Man, Jersey, Niue, Saint Helena, São Tomé and Príncipe, Svalbard and Jan Mayen and Tokelau.
We are unable to deliver to shipping addresses outside of the countries listed here.
We ship all our orders tracked. You can find shipping rates for your country by entering your postal code, city, province and country into the shipping rate calculator in your cart, before you check out.
Please note that not all shipping methods are available for all destinations.
Please note that as the customer, you are the importer of record responsible for importing the Goods purchased on Young W into your country. You are responsible for any additional duties, customs charges, fees, taxes or import charges which may be charged by your country’s customs authorities and/or your country’s government when receiving your shipment at the destination address.
We use various Canada Post shipping methods (Expedited Parcel, Tracked Packet, Xpresspost and Priority) to ship orders. Depending on your location, all or only some of these shipping methods may be offered for your specific order. To see shipping methods & pricing available to your destination, please enter a shipping address (postal code, city, province and country) into the shopping cart page before checkout.
The shopping cart page will also display the estimated delivery time for each method. However, please note that shipping timelines may be impacted by general postal delays due to Covid-19 in Canada and abroad.
Shipping timelines will depend on the specific shipping method you chose. We use various Canada Post shipping methods (Expedited Parcel, Tracked Packet, Xpresspost and Priority) to ship orders.
To see shipping methods, pricing and estimated delivery times available to your destination, please enter a shipping address (postal code, city, province and country) into the shopping cart page before checkout.
However, please note that we cannot guarantee delivery estimates, since postal delivery may be significantly impacted by postal delays due to Covid-19 in Canada and abroad.
We cannot guarantee delivery estimates, since postal delivery may be significantly impacted by shipping delays due to Covid-19 in Canada and abroad.
Please use the tracking number provided to you via email on the day the order was shipped to check the status of your order.
In case your order has not arrived within 45 days of the ship date, please contact us no earlier than 45 days after the ship date and no later than 80 days after the ship date at contact@youngw.ca. The ship date is the date you received your shipping confirmation email. We will do our best to assist you.
Yes, you will get an email with a shipping confirmation and a package tracking number on the day that your order is dispatched. We ship all our orders with tracking.
No, we do not offer local pickup.
Unfortunately we do not ship to countries which are not listed above under the question “Which countries do you ship to?”.
Unless indicated otherwise on the product description page, all items labeled as ‘Sold by: Young W’ ship from Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
We can ship to PO boxes in Canada. We ship orders with Canada Post. Therefore, for all international orders, PO boxes can be used as mailing addresses if addressing mail to a PO box is possible for this country as per the Canada Post International Shipping Chart (which you can find here on the Canada Post website). For orders placed with a PO box mailing address which cannot be completed as per Canada Post, we will contact you to either cancel the order or to obtain an alternate (non-PO box) shipping address.
We do offer free standard shipping from time to time. If we do, a free shipping coupon code will be displayed on our website. You can then use this coupon code during checkout (please make sure to enter it into the specific field that says: “Have a coupon?”). The system will waive the standard shipping fees and add a free shipping option on the checkout page.
However, free shipping promotions do not apply to express courier shipping quotes for bottled ink beyond the Greater Toronto Area in the winter months (see question “Can I order fountain pen ink in the winter?”). Any free shipping promotions only apply to our regular, standard shipping options.
Privacy & sustainability
We are strongly committed to sustainability and to contributing our part to reach the world’s climate goals. We also believe that no organization is too small to make an impact and that it is the responsibility of all of us, organizations small and large, and individuals, to make every effort we can to urgently reduce our carbon footprint. The below points list things YW is already doing, however, we know that this is only a start. We know we can and need to do more and will update this section on an ongoing basis as we expand our sustainability efforts.
We
- recycle waste which can be recycled that is generated by our operations;
- use only FSC-certified paper in our day-to-day work;
- make sustainability practices of suppliers and vendors a key part of all our sourcing decisions;
- source only from countries where workers are paid fair wages;
- prioritize locally produced goods in our assortment to reduce the carbon-footprint of shipping across large distances;
- avoid using plastic in the production of YW-made products and packaging;
- avoid selling items which contain harmful materials such as glitter;
- select environmentally-friendly paper and materials for our own products (as far as printing technology and pricing allow);
- select environmentally-friendly packaging materials and shipping supplies for all orders we ship;
- ask that our product vendors and drop-ship suppliers select similarly environmentally-friendly packaging materials and shipping supplies for their orders.
We care a lot about privacy! Please see our detailed privacy policy here. The short version is:
Young W operates according to the following privacy commitments:
- We are thoughtful about the Personal Data we collect about you and only collect as much data as needed to perform our Services.
- We store Personal Data only for as long as we have a reason to keep it and as it is needed to serve you.
- You can contact us at any time to obtain the Personal Data we hold about you or to request for it to be permanently deleted.
- We do not and never will sell any Data, Personal or otherwise, to third parties.
- We aim for full transparency on how we gather, use, and share your Personal Data.
- We make our best effort to comply with PIPEDA, CASL, GDPR and CCPA.
Please see our detailed Cookie Policy here to read about our use of cookies.
The short version is that we try to avoid using cookies as much as possible, we do not track your website visit if you have not checked the opt-in box on the cookie banner at the beginning of your website visit, we do not track visitors across websites, we do not sell or share your information, and we do not use advertising on our site.
About Young W
Young W is an arts & letters directory, resource and online shop covering nine themes:
We help you reduce screen-time and make more space for arts and letters in your life by directing your attention, time and energy towards offline cultural experiences and creative pursuits. Read more about Young W on our About page and here.
Young W was created in over the course of the pandemic by Elena from Toronto as a celebration of all things arts, culture, humanities & analog. Young W is all about living a more offline life and appreciating the boundless beauty that can be found within the world of arts & letters, especially when approaching these subjects with a beginner’s mind rather than with the eye of an expert or insider.
There are nine themes to Young W, because we feel the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Also, we love list-making, so therefore, creating a directory seemed like a natural thing to do.
We felt that there are just so many amazing things out there – be it creative pursuits, activities, hobbies, products, brands, shops, artists, writers, thinkers, books, ideas, people, groups, organizations, businesses, classes or events – and that what is needed is not MORE STUFF, but MORE ATTENTION. We want to give artists, businesses and organizations the recognition they deserve for all the amazing and fascinating work they do and for all the ways they enrich our lives. So this is how this idea came about to create Young W, a space for showcasing an ecosystem of people, places and products in the domains of reading, writing, paper, art, performance, poetry, cities, society and language.
Thank you for your interest!
We always looking for new entries for our global directory covering the nine pillars of arts & letters. Simply fill out the form here or email us at info@youngw.ca with a short blurb about your organization, the link to your website, and some images to include in your entry (image requirements: four .jpg files with dimensions 1000 x 1000px and one .jpg with 3000px width x 1200px height). We don’t charge a fee to be listed, but make our own editorial choices about what we publish. Check out the category links by theme below to see if your organization, business, artist profile, shop, brand, non-profit etc. would be a good fit. We add directory entries from all continents.
No problem. Simply email us at info@youngw.ca with any changes or updates you would like to make, and we will adjust your directory entry.
We are always open to add more details to entries. If there is something specific you would like us to call out, please just let us know.
That is a good question. We cannot wait to have a physical location. However, due to various financial and logistical reasons this is not feasible at the moment. But we are planning to open a physical location (shop + event space in Toronto, ON) as soon as the opportunity presents itself.
While we do of course make use of technology on this website, we try to do so in the most “analog” way possible: we use social media sparingly and do not have “share” buttons, we avoid linking to and using products by major tech platforms (e.g. we use Matomo instead of Google Analytics, we use Vimeo instead of Youtube, we use Bookshop.org instead of Amazon, etc.), we don’t use automation, algorithms or advertising, we place a very strong focus on privacy and our data is hosted at an internet service provider Switzerland who cares about the issue of data sovereignty. YW uses digital technology, like the internet, as a tool. However, central to our ethos is to add an offline and human touch to everything we do.
The fact that Elena’s last name starts with a W is actually a coincidence. The W in the name ‘Young W’ is a reference to ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther‘, a book Elena read in high school and was a huge fan of. It’s an epistolary novel written by Goethe in 1774 and features the letters that a young, passionate and heartbroken Werther writes to his friend, Wilhelm. You can read more about how this book inspired the Young W brand here.
Thank you for your interest in having your event listed!
The events we are looking to feature are live in-person and live virtual arts & letters events related to at least one of YW’s nine themes. Listing are free and updated every Thursday morning, however, we make our own editorial decisions about which events to feature. Simply fill out the form here or email us at info@youngw.ca with your event details and at least two .jpg files (one with 3000 px width x 1200 px height and one with 1005 px width x 750 px height). We add event listings from all continents.
Yes, we do. We add new products in early spring, mid-summer and early fall. We are always open to receiving suggestions about what to stock and are particularly interested in stocking books by self-published authors (hardcopy or paperback only, no ebooks). If you are an author who has a self-published book that you would like us to consider for our next launch, please email us with all the relevant details at info@youngw.ca. We can’t wait to discover your book!
Maybe. We add new products in early spring, mid-summer and early fall. We are always open to receiving suggestions about what to stock and are happy to receive inquiries from artists, vendors, creators, makers and brands. Young W sells books, stationery, writing instruments, art, home decor and thoughtful gifts. All products we stock need to be related to one of our nine themes: reading, writing, paper, art, performance, poetry, cities, and language.
If you have a product or collection that you would like us to consider for our next launch, please email us with all the relevant details at info@youngw.ca.
If your idea is related to one of our nine themes, please do email us at info@youngw.ca – we are excited to hear what you have in mind and would love to hear your ideas!
We are also planning to host our own live in-person (and/or virtual) arts & culture events in the near future (Covid-19-permitting). We are looking to partner with guest speakers, instructors, collaborators, lecturers, teachers, writers and facilitators. To find out more details on what we are looking for, please check out the Get Involved page.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Please send us an email at admin@youngw.ca to let us know about broken links. Thanks for alerting us! We appreciate it.
We are currently looking for a part-time marketing coordinator. If you are located in Canada and have a humanities background, please do get in touch.
About Young W
Young W is an arts & letters resource hub for discovering a flourishing offline life. Through its directory and online shop, they provide inspiration and ideas about nine themes across the arts, culture and the humanities: reading, writing, paper, arts, performance, poetry, cities, society and language. They help people reduce screen-time by directing their attention, time and energy towards offline cultural experiences and creative interests and by offering exploration kits, a type of print product which provides readers with a guided tour across Young W’s nine themes through discovery and exploration.
Please direct all media inquiries to:
Elena Woo, producer, (416) 670-6416, elena@youngw.ca
Press images can be downloaded here. Please make sure to include the photo credit when using these images. For higher resolution images, please get in touch.
Horizontal images:
- the analog lifestyle kit – chapter 1. Photo credit: Madeleine Dalkie
- YW Scented Candle – Sturm und Drang. Photo credit: Madeleine Dalkie
- YW Bookmarks (chapter 1) – set of 4 – chapter 1
- Young W shop
- Young W directory
Square images:
Do you have a question that is not listed here?
Please email us at info@youngw.ca with any questions or concerns and we will do our best to assist you.