We don't make 'em. We just sell 'em.

Maybe it's because some of our posters are hard to find that some people must think we're the printing plant. We produce nothing (except customer smiles, hopefully). EVERY item Wallkeepsakes sells comes either from a long-established poster company selling to a large market somewhere, or from a record company or movie studio in the case of original promotional posters. We don't make anything ourselves and won't sell anything homemade. We can't answer production-related questions because we're not connected to that and might well know less about it than you do. They make 'em, they deal with the copyrights (as they're doing the copying!), they put them out, and then we have to find them and (hopefully) sell them.

Sometimes others also are selling them. Any claims of quality differences on the same new item from the same poster company are bunk; it's like Wal-Mart saying their Pepsi tastes better than Target's.

So why buy from here rather than somebody else? Several reasons:

* The best shipping with PVC, backed by guarantee. See above. Also see feedback, as many of those will mention packing and shipping.

* Conscientious descriptions, also backed by guarantee.

* Good location to ship from in one of the top transportation centers in America. If you're a U.S.-based customer, you won't have to worry about extra damage potential from a longer trip, extra time or damage from inspections in getting the item through U.S. customs (as that's not a factor), or certain eBay and PayPal safeguards not applying to transactions outside the U.S.

* Shipping discounts for multiple items bought within a 7-day period if paid for and sent out together. These apply to both domestic AND international shipments. Especially with international shipments, it pays to buy 2 or 3 items, as the additional shipping won't be very much more if sent together.

* Internet postage, which means the labels have the postnet and delivery confirm barcodes already printed on! While we can't control the Postal Service and it often acts mysteriously, having Internet postage and preprinted barcodes seems to speed things along on average, especially domestically.

* Insurance that in most cases is carried privately and priced well below the postal service's price.

* Better responsiveness if things go wrong, which is a situation we try have happen as little as possible. But if it does, send us an e-mail.

* No pricing-obfuscation games, such as pricing in British Pounds (if selling from somewhere other than Britain) to make the price seem lower. Or charging unreasonable shipping to allow for a lower starting bid. Or trying to cheat the postman by charging full price for shipping and turning around and sending something Media Mail that doesn't qualify. We believe it's still possible to sell a good product at a fair price and make money.

The nuts & bolts of shipping

There's a saying that you can have it cheap, fast and good. Now, pick two.

We'd like to have all three, too, but cheap and good are the strongest suits and we do our part on the fast, with the rest up to the postal service.

About 90 percent of items go out within 2 business days after receiving a confirmed payment.

Most U.S. items are sent First Class with delivery confirm. We've found speed differences in most cases on this to be negligible compared to Priority Mail, especially for distances under 1,000 miles. Priority Mail, though, is automatic at 13 or more ounces (about 3+ posters), so if you order 3 or more shipped together to the U.S., it will probably be priority mail. We don't use private shippers because their charges are substantially higher than the USPS on low-weight items. This has long been the case.

For countries other than the U.S., we use First Class International (aka air mail) because it's the only game in town. Surface mail is too slow and no longer available from the U.S. Private shippers also currently don't offer anything close in price to First Class International; they can send it fast and good, but definitely not cheap.

As per eBay's language, sellers are not responsible for delivery transit times. Most of the time the postal service will hit its target, but there's always that 1 in 10 during the holiday season that takes 3 weeks when it should have taken 4 days. Those are a real mystery, and frustrating to both buyer and seller. It takes 30 days from mailing to presume a loss, but those are far outnumbered by cases where it's slow but does turn up within 30 days.