Buy art · Sourced
What happens when the print turns up wrong.
Three big print shops, three completely different answers — and one of them does not have a returns policy at all in the sense you are probably imagining.
Research, not experience. Everything below comes from each seller’s own published policy pages, read on 31 August 2026 and linked at the bottom. We have not placed these orders. Policies change — check the date before you rely on it.
Almost every art print sold into Australia comes from overseas. That makes the returns policy more important than it would be at home: a parcel going back to Poland or the United States costs real money, and the difference between “full refund including shipping” and “store credit minus postage” can be most of what you paid.
Here is what the three most commonly recommended sellers actually promise.
| Seller | Window | What you get | Return postage | Original shipping refunded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Displate | 100 calendar days from delivery | Full refund of the product price | You pay | Yes — the policy says the refund includes “the original shipping and handling fees” |
| Society6 | 30 days to request, then 15 days to post it back | Refund only — “We do not offer Exchanges” | You pay — a US$7.95 return shipping & handling fee is deducted from the refund | No |
| Redbubble | 30 days from the latest estimated delivery date | Replacement order or a Redbubble voucher, minus shipping | n/a | No |
The one that stands out, in both directions
Displate is unusually generous. A hundred days is more than three times the industry norm, and refunding the original shipping is rare enough that it is worth pausing on. You still pay to post the thing back, and the metal poster must be unused with the magnet mount unopened — but if you hang it, hate it, and act within three months, you are close to whole.
Redbubble’s is not really a returns policy. Read the wording carefully: returns are available if “your thing arrives in less-than-perfect condition.” That is a damage-and-defects policy. There is no change-of-mind return. And even when you qualify, the remedy is a replacement or a voucher rather than your money back — so a bad experience leaves you holding Redbubble credit rather than cash. Orders over US$250 also attract a 20% restocking fee.
Society6 sits in between and is the most conventional of the three: thirty days, a real refund, a flat US$7.95 deducted. Furniture and gift cards are final sale, and bulk orders of twenty or more items cannot be returned at all.
The practical read: if you are buying something you are unsure about, the returns terms are a real differentiator and Displate is the outlier. If you are buying something you have seen and are confident about, they matter much less.
GST, and the A$1,000 line
This trips people up because the rule changed and most articles still describe the old one. As the ATO sets it out:
- Overseas suppliers who sell more than A$75,000 a year into Australia must register for GST and charge it at the point of sale — the same way an Australian shop would. For a print under A$1,000, the GST is usually already inside the price you see at checkout.
- Where the customs value is over A$1,000, GST is payable at the border to Australian Border Force instead, and you will be contacted before the parcel is released.
- If a supplier charges GST upfront on something over A$1,000, they must document it on the import paperwork so you are not charged twice. If you are billed at the border for something you already paid GST on, that is the paperwork to chase.
For ordinary art prints this means the sticker price is usually the whole story. It is the large original artwork — the thing costing four figures — where a second bill arrives.
Your Australian Consumer Law rights, and the trap
The ACCC is clear that the Australian Consumer Law does apply when an overseas business sells directly to consumers in Australia. Overseas sellers are bound by the consumer guarantees and cannot make misleading claims. That is the good news, and it is better than most people assume.
The ACCC is equally clear about the catch: “it can be difficult to get a repair, replacement or refund from an overseas business if there is a problem,” and Australian consumer agencies can offer only limited help across a border. A right you cannot practically enforce is worth less than a policy the seller honours voluntarily — which is the real argument for reading the returns terms rather than relying on the law.
The trap worth knowing: you are not covered by the ACL if the goods are shipped to an address overseas first and then forwarded on to you. If you use a freight forwarder or a parcel-forwarding service to get around a seller who will not ship to Australia, you step outside the protection. That is a genuine cost of the workaround, and nobody selling those services will mention it.
Where this came from
Read on 31 August 2026: Displate, Shipping & Returns · Society6, Return Policy · Redbubble, Return and Exchange Policies · ATO, GST on imported goods and services · ACCC, Buying online