Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Absolutely—we understand that some people may feel hesitant about trusting an online store.

However, we’d like to reassure you: we’re a reputable, fully registered French company listed with the Paris Trade and Companies Register (75) under number 951155779.

We also invite you to click here to read the many reviews and testimonials from our customers. It’s the best proof we can offer.

If you’d like to contact us directly, simply visit our contact page, and we’ll be happy to reply within 48 hours.

Trust your instincts and join the Instruments du Monde community today!

Yes! We take security very seriously and do everything we can to provide you with a reliable, smooth, and secure shopping experience. No banking information is ever transmitted to or stored by Instruments du Monde. We use top-tier e-commerce technology and guarantee 100% secure payments.

The “HTTPS” in our store’s URLs is a sign that your connection is secure. It’s a protected version of “http” that uses SSL/TLS protocols. HTTPS is specifically designed to secure online financial transactions. As e-commerce merchants, we know SSL is now essential—it’s one of the best ways to protect your data and help prevent identity theft.

In practice, your SSL certificate is shown by a padlock icon in your browser’s address bar and by the “s” added to “http”—making it “https.”

This security protocol ensures your information is encrypted, so even our store can never access your credit card details.

Your security is our priority. Our site only offers the most secure payment methods on the market.

We accept the following payment methods:

- Credit card

- VISA

- American Express

- Mastercard

- Bank transfer

- Check

We also accept the following online payment services:

- PayPal*

- Klarna

*As a regulated financial institution in the European Union, PayPal brings more than 10 years of experience in secure online payments. It’s simple, fast, free, and trusted worldwide.

Your bank details or credit card information will never be shared with us. All payments are protected by our encrypted payment processor (128-bit SSL).

Yes, you can absolutely defer or split your payments with our trusted partner Klarna. No fees will be applied when you choose this payment method.

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You can pay in 3 interest-free installments or pay 30 days after ordering through our partner Klarna for orders from $35 to $4,500.

You’ll need a free Klarna account and be at least 18 years old.

Once you’ve finalized your shopping cart, choose Klarna as your payment method, and the option to pay in 3 interest-free installments or 30 days after placing your order will be displayed. Select this option, and Klarna will respond within seconds to determine whether it has been accepted.

Approval of a 3-installment, interest-free payment or “pay in 30 days” is at the sole discretion of Klarna, and Instruments du Monde has no influence over this decision.

An invoice is automatically provided for every order placed on our store.

Once you confirm your order, you’ll receive a confirmation email a few seconds later with a link to download the invoice for that order. Your invoice will be provided as a PDF.

If you created a customer account before placing your order, you can find all your invoices in this secure area by viewing your order history.

For environmental reasons, we no longer include paper invoices in the packages we ship.

If you represent a public-sector organization, we accept payment via an administrative mandate.

Please contact us at the following email address: secretariat@instruments-du-monde.com, and include the product name(s) and the quantity you’d like to purchase. We’ll send you a quote as soon as possible so you can issue the purchase order.

Once we receive the purchase order, we’ll ship the products, then upload the invoice to the Chorus Pro portal 14 days after the order is received.

Yes, it’s true. We’ve committed, entirely at our own expense, to supporting the European nonprofit environmental organization "Tree-Nation" by planting one tree for every order placed on our store. You can learn more about how it works and verify our commitment by visiting our reforestation solidarity projects.

It’s a strong environmental commitment, and we’re truly proud of it!

Shipping is free throughout the entire Instruments du Monde store in mainland France, Belgium, and Switzerland, regardless of your location or the instrument you wish to purchase. Additional fees may apply if you reside in another country.

On average, it takes us less than 48 business hours to process and ship your order.

This timeframe may be exceptionally longer for customized instruments (specific tuning or engraving) or during peak periods (holiday season, Black Friday), as well as if you reside in countries outside the European Union, to allow for the time required to complete customs formalities.

As an exception, the company reserves the right to a period of annual leave during which no orders will be shipped, except for e-books. For the year 2026, this period has been set from February 7 through February 22, inclusive.

Please be advised that we are doing everything possible to ship your order as soon as possible.

You can modify your order as long as it hasn’t been shipped yet. Please contact us as soon as possible and let us know what you’d like to change.

To help you stay informed, we’ve set up a detailed order-tracking system that lets you follow your order step by step.

Orders ship within 2 business days. This is the time our logistics team needs to process your order and hand it over to the carrier.

Orders are delivered to France, Belgium, and Switzerland within 3–14 business days, depending on where the items are shipping from. This timeframe is provided for guidance only and may occasionally be longer, especially due to air-traffic disruptions and customs checks. We recommend first checking your order tracking, which shows each step of your delivery.

To offer instruments that stay as close as possible to the professionals who make them, we’ve developed direct partnerships—no middlemen—with artisans and manufacturers in France and around the world. This innovative model helps lower prices and reduces the environmental footprint of transportation. In return, delivery times can be a bit longer than with traditional models. It’s through thoughtful choices like this that, together, we can help protect the planet.

Whenever possible, products are stored in different countries, as close as possible to where they’re made. For example, some tongue drums are stored in Eastern Europe, some Tibetan singing bowls in Nepal and Tibet (PRC), while other instruments and accessories are stored in France or elsewhere in Asia. This fair-trade approach lets us eliminate unnecessary intermediaries so we can offer you quality products at a price that works for you while ensuring fair compensation for the maker.

As stated in our shipping policy, delivery times can vary between 3 and 14 business days from the time the order is shipped. While a carrier-related logistical issue is always possible, if you still haven’t received your order after that period—and especially after 30 days, as provided by French consumer law—please contact us with your order number so we can work together to resolve the issue.

No, we do not offer direct delivery to pickup points.

However, if the delivery driver is unable to hand you the package, you may be offered another delivery date. Alternatively, your package will be held at a pickup point near your home for around ten days so that you can collect it later.

This way, you can pick up your order whenever it suits you.

If you’re not home for the first delivery attempt, the carrier will try again the next business day.

If the second attempt is unsuccessful, your order will be held at a nearby pickup point for about ten days, giving you time to stop by and collect it.

No, we do not offer delivery to France's overseas departments and territories.

No!

If your order ships from outside your country, you won’t owe any customs fees. Our company covers these fees in full, so you won’t be asked to pay anything when picking up your package from the postal service. If this happens anyway, it’s an extremely rare customs error—please contact us to report it. We’ll reimburse those customs fees (with proof of payment) via bank transfer.

We offer items crafted by hundreds of professionals, including French artisans, who sometimes work in different countries. So if you’ve ordered several items, they’ll likely be made by different makers.

Rather than centralizing everything in a single warehouse—which would increase shipping costs and the fuel needed to transport all the instruments—orders ship directly from the place of manufacture. This approach reduces our ecological footprint. Don’t be surprised if your order arrives in multiple packages.

As a result, you may receive the first part of your order while the second is still in transit. If, after 30 days (as provided by French consumer law), you still haven’t received your order, please contact us as soon as possible so we can find a solution together.

Don’t worry. If there hasn’t been any update in the order tracking for more than 5 days, it’s possible that your package was lost or damaged by the carrier.

In that case, please contact us and let us know. We’ll offer to reship your order at our expense.

In accordance with our terms and conditions of sale, which must be accepted in order to place an order:

• "Upon receipt of the product, the customer agrees to check that the product is complete and undamaged."
• "If an issue is found, the customer must contact the company’s customer service department within fourteen days (excluding public holidays) of the date of receipt. Any complaint submitted after this deadline cannot be processed."

Therefore, any signs of impact, damage, rust, mold, tuning issues, or any other alteration to the product must be reported within this period. These conditions are in place because such issues can result from poor maintenance or mishandling by the customer. After this period, any issue that may be caused by poor maintenance or mishandling will be considered the customer’s responsibility.

If you’re not 100% satisfied, you have 14 days from the date you receive your order to return your items. No explanation is required, and you’ll be refunded promptly—that’s the Instruments du Monde Zen Guarantee!

As a special exception, and for the holiday season, any order placed from November 10 of the current year can be returned until December 31 of that year. Whichever period is more favorable (the exception or the standard return window) is the one that applies. For example, an order placed on December 2 can be returned until December 31 of the same year.

In accordance with the French Consumer Code (Article L. 221-18), you have the right to withdraw from the purchase of a physical product on the online store https://instruments-du-monde.com/. This right does not apply to personalized products sold on the aforementioned store, as provided by French law.

To exercise this right, please read and complete this right-of-withdrawal form within the specified time frame, following all provided instructions.

Refunds are typically processed within 48 hours to the same payment method used to place your order. The refund will be issued once we’ve received the returned item and our customer service team has verified its condition.

If you’d like to place a bulk order (minimum 10 copies of the same product), please contact us for discounted pricing.

Yes! You can follow us on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Unfortunately, we don’t yet have the resources to welcome visitors at our headquarters in Paris, so for now we operate exclusively through this online store.

As soon as we’re able, we’ll give our customers the option to visit and try instruments before buying.

We’d love to say yes, but unfortunately, not always.

Take the kalimba, for example. It has African origins, but most manufacturing today takes place in Europe, North America, or Asia.

As a result, grouping instruments by their established or presumed geographic origins doesn’t guarantee that the instrument sold in our store was actually made in that part of the world, even though we do our best to pay close attention to it.

We’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have—simply reach out using our contact form.