mrbigdeals wrote:
1. Has anybody ever used regular mail to ship low value items within Canada and what has the experience been?
By "regular mail" you mean without tracking? Of course, all the time. That is the only way to mail low-value items because if you list low-value items with a tracked service you will never sell any.
From time to time you will have to refund a scammer who says the item never arrived. It's part of the cost of doing business. You can send a nice VERY polite request for the buyer to wait a little longer and occasionally they will. Give them a firm date, like Friday Feb 10th and say if it has not arrived by then you will refund. On Friday, ask if the buyer has received the item, and if they say no (a few will) then promptly issue a full refund.
Once a buyer opens a case on an untracked item, you have a few days to respond but you may as well refund. If you can't prove delivery eBay will always issue a prompt refund and (this is important) if ever eBay has to step in, you the seller will get a defect.
Never ignore a buyer's case to where they get eBay to step in. That is what's known as an "unresolved case" and you do not want defects.
mrbigdeals wrote:
2. Is there any policy that prohibits sellers from shipping items without tracking and will it affect my shipping metrics?
Not in Canada. Unlike the US, the only affordable way to ship low-value items is without tracking. EBay knows this. It just means that from time to time you will have to refund a thief is all.
To cope with that, you use what is commonly referred to as "cookie jar insurance". A personal insurance fee that you add to each and every item you sell. How much you need will depend on the amount of refunds you will have to make and how many.
Some categories are worse than others for attracting scammers. But the thing to do is add a bit to each item, and tally these bits in a ledger so you see where they are and when you have to refund a liar you take it from this "insurance fund".
If your items are low value and small enough to go lettermail, you could always roll the shipping fee into the item price and list with "free shipping". That has the advantage of giving you 5-stars for shipping (stars don't count for anything any more but its still nice to have a full set of 5s), and prevents buyers whining about excessive shipping fees because they paid $2.00 but the actual cost was only $1.80.
For parcels you can enter the weight and dimensions and use the shipping calculator. Some things are not suitable for mail order, like low value items that are really big and heavy, like thick hardcover "best seller" books that can be found for 10¢ in every yard sale, junk shop and thrift store in the country.
