As the shop guy who posts all the orders (apart from SD cards) all I can do is apologise for any delays you are seeing.
First of all, I generally do 2 runs to the post office each week so depending on when you place the order you could see a 2 -4 day delay before it is posted or it could go out the same day. You will get a 2nd email from the shop saying your order is processed complete, normally on the day of posting. Contrary to what you may think, when it gets busy I do go more often just to clear the backlog!
We send all orders first class but not tracked so cannot tell you where it is once it has been posted.
We do not send tracked as it is one more thing for me to do when processing the order but also because of the price - a 250g package to Europe is £4.25 and tracked is £9.20. Note we already do not charge the full postage rate (typically £1.50) but we are reviewing that.
We are looking to see if we can add tracked as a paid-for option.
Delivery does seem to vary from country to country but the people at the Post Office tell me that customs charges have caused severe delays in some countries.
Note - we are very happy to send again free of charge any orders that have not arrived within 1 month of posting - we have only had to do this a few times - most things turn up eventually.
On customs charges, I did a separate post but please note the following:
BATC will NOT make a false declaration of the value of the goods.
BATC will not split an order in to more than 1 package to reduce the value of goods in each package to below any VAT threshold.
All goods are currently sold at cost plus to members and we will NOT reduce the cost of goods and increase the value of post and packing to reduce the customs liability.
So please be prepared for extra charges depending on how friendly your countries customs people are
I hope this helps - we do try to provide a reasonable service, but we are volunteers and running the shop has to come out of my own personal shack time
73 Noel - G8GTZ