WHAT DO SELLERS DO ABOUT BUYERS Taking Advantage of the Shipping/Tracking

[ohsooffices]

I would like to know how other sellers react to a buyer saying they did not get there item. It is impossible to pay the shipping price to get tracking when the item is only worth 3-5 dolars. I have had many customers say they don;t get the items but sometimes I think they are not being honest how do you sellers protect yourselves?

[ricarmic]

Stuff being "lost" is a part of doing business, you should figure on a (small) percentage of your item "cost" being to "self insure" this kind of situation. At least the item is something inexpensive. My practice is to verify they aren't a regular customer and then BLOCK them.

[coxengines]

We ship about 500 packages/month and 2-3 never make it to destination.

We re-ship (or refund) as follows:

Canada - 2 weeks
USA - 3 weeks
International - 4 weeks

We never block a customer unless they have filed an INR with Paypal or are otherwise abusive.

Industry standard for "lost-in-the-mail" is about 0.5% and we would never think of punishing a customer for this. Caveat: See above.

We overprice shipping by aprx. $0.75 to $1.00, after factoring in all packaging costs and the $400 -500 shipping profit is basically our fund for self-insurance.

That aside, Canada Post honours all claims to $100 anyhow, so no worries.

Bernie


Bernie

[ricarmic]

Hi again, Bernie actually reminded me that I don't always block them, a lot depends on what countries they are from and how they present the fact that it didn't arrive. Normally my lost stuff is from dangerous countries overseas and in those cases I don't risk sending again. If they're from North America and are polite about it I usually don't block them.

[femmefan1946]

I notice that most of your low starting price items are fairly bulky, so I assume you are using Small Packet USA and International.

Could I suggest that you mention in your listing and/or feedback that the shipment is Insured? I know this is playing games, but many bidders can't tell the difference between Insured and Delivery Confirmed. This may cut down on the number of phoney claims.

And of course, you do have the self-insurance option for Light Packet items.

I use Light Packet a lot for my paperbacks. I find that giving the shipping invoice number in the feedback and stating it is a Canada Post Air Mail service is useful.

[cadillactech2000]

Yes, femmefan1946 is absolutely right about that. I've been sending US customers a prewritten paragraph explaining how long they should expect to wait and that their parcel is "insured against loss".

Buyers just want to feel informed, and I'm pretty sure that they don't know the difference between Insured and Delivery Confirmed. None of my customers ever challenge me for tracking information after I've sent them my shipping information email.

[dipmicro]

Buyers just want to feel informed, and I'm pretty sure that they don't know the difference between Insured and Delivery Confirmed. None of my customers ever challenge me for tracking information after I've sent them my shipping information email.

They don't read it anyway. They don't read the item description, they don't look at invoices, why would they read any additional information in the package.

They might read your email, but you need to wait after they ask. They will not read unsolicited emails.

Example: I routinely refund shipping excess when buyer do not request combined invoice. One buyer two weeks ago filed a dispute after receiving partial refund. 5 minutes later he closed the dispute because he re-read my email and found out I was only refunding the shipping excess. It was also in the description field of the dispute.