I'm not sure why its no common sense either, the first thing anybody should do if they are purchasing from a custom handmade website, is to check the shipping section, this is a given..

Because people, aka consumers, are in search of a product. Their instinct is to look for the product not policies. It's the responsibility of the company to place the important information such as shipping policy in a section that is inevitable to miss such as checkout. It's called having an experienced marketing team who knows consumer behavior.