Returns, Refunds & Germination Promise
Your rights under South African law
Nothing below limits what the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 gives you. Goods that are faulty, not as described, or unfit for their ordinary purpose carry a statutory right to a remedy whatever a shop policy says, and section 56 gives you six months to return goods that fail that standard. Because you are buying online, the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002 also applies, and section 44 of that Act gives a seven-day cooling-off period on an electronic transaction. Our own terms below are more generous than that minimum, not a replacement for it.
The 95% germination guarantee, and what stands behind it
This is a commercial promise with a remedy attached, not a laboratory result. We have not tested your specific pack and we do not publish a tested percentage as though we had. What we commit to is simple: germinate using the method in our guide, and if fewer than 95% of the seeds open, we replace them.
- Email support@royalkingseeds.co.za within 30 days of the parcel arriving, quoting your order number.
- Attach photographs of the attempt itself — the damp paper-towel method shows most clearly what happened.
- Once we have looked at it, replacements go out free: same strain, same pack size, no return postage to pay.
The photograph is not there to catch anyone out. It is there to tell two different situations apart — a seed that was never viable, and a viable seed stalled by conditions, which in this country is most often a cold Highveld night in an unheated room.
Unopened packs
Seed is a living product, so an opened pack cannot go back into stock. A pack still sealed and in the condition it arrived can be returned within 14 days of delivery for a full refund — ask us for a return authorisation before you post it, so we can match the parcel to your order when it lands.
If the parcel arrives damaged or short
Tell us within 7 days and send a photograph of the outer packaging and the contents. Couriers do occasionally crush a parcel between Johannesburg and an outlying town, and that is our problem to fix rather than yours: replacements are sent at no cost.
Who pays the return postage
If you changed your mind about an unopened pack, the postage back to us is yours. If we caused it — wrong strain picked, packaging that did not survive the trip — we cover it, either with a prepaid label or by arranging collection.
How long a refund takes
Five business days from the returned item reaching us and being checked, back to whatever you originally paid with. Card refunds then take a further few days to appear, which is your bank rather than us. A crypto payment is refunded at the rand value of the original transaction, not at the coin price on the day, because the coin price will have moved.