Ship Lettermail within Canada without tracking. Is that wise? (Another noob question)

[wyrdforge]

Another annoying noobie question...

Is it wise/smart to ship a small item with Lettermail without tracking? The issue is that Canada Post Lettermail, while relatively cheap at $1.94, offers no option of proof of delivery, other than Registered (for an extra $9.75!) Besides, I'm not convinced eBay considers Registered a proof of delivery.

If I want Tracking, I must ship as a "Regular Parcel", but then the cost shoots up to $19.72 (delivery confirmation included).

No tracking, to me, just seems to be asking for trouble. Too easy for a buyer to say "I never received the item" (never mind that they can claim it was damaged -- insurance?)

Am I just worrying over nothing?

Of course, the buyer bears all costs (item + shipping, etc.) but it just seems to me that the choices are limited. It's either cheap shipping with no tracking, or exorbitant shipping with tracking, nothing in between.

Is it just me, or is Canada Post not exactly helpful?

Thanks for your comments.

[ricarmic]

It looks like this is your buying ID so I don't know what you sell, a lot depends on your risk tolerance and the relative categories you sell in.

There's a very big risk difference between selling cell phones vs stamps (what I sell).

Cookie jar insurance is often talked about where you self insure. You need to sell enough stuff for the cookie jar insurance to work, and generally that makes sense for smaller value items. Don't know if you're selling expensive or inexpensive stuff.

Keep in mind on these boards all you hear about are the problems, not all buyers are criminals, again a lot depends on what category(s) you are selling in.

eBay only protects you if it has tracking (you are correct that Registered letters are identified as NOT being a valid proof of shipping).

If you let us know more about what you're doing, we can maybe provide more accurate advice, but note that even within a category what works for me, might not work for another seller.....

[ypdc_dennis]

Depends what you are selling.  Some categories are more likely to have light fingered buyers than others.

Depends on value of the item being sold.

Depends on where it is going.  

My loss rate is less than 1% for sales sent lettermail. You self-insure, setting aside a certain amount from each sale to cover any losses.  For example: 100 sales at $10 w/shipping, a loss rate of 1% (one) is covered by setting aside 10 cents from each sale. If your lost rate is 10% you would need $1.10 set aside from each sale.

...

As for tracked parcels:

* Do sign up for Canada Post's free Solutions for Small Business card, which gives you some small discounts and bonuses. Expedited parcel has $100 insurance included and has a delivery-time guarantee or shipping cost refunded.

* Check to see if ChitChats or StallionExpress has a local location that you can use and send your parcels using their discounted Canada Post parcel rates.

* Bundle items so the sale value is high enough to justify tracked shipping.

-;-

[recped]

I use Lettermail within Canada for anything that fits, I don't recall ever having a not received claim for any of them (probably a couple of thousand).

Average values $20 - $25, If I tried to charge package rates to ship I would not sell anything!

[marnotom!]

Think of it the same way that a brick and mortar merchant might have some merchandise outside their front doors to entice passers-by.

They would be less likely to do it if they were in a rough neighbourhood than if they were in an affluent one.

They would be more likely to do it with low-cost but interesting items than they would for pricey items.

[wyrdforge]

Thank you @ricarmic and @ypdc_dennis for your replies.

I plan to sell mostly Lego new, sealed sets that are retired. Size varies from small poly bag (17x13x1 cm, market value $10-$30) to medium-ish boxed sets (50x30x10 cm, market value $50-$400). I have some larger sets as well, but not selling those yet, so not currently a concern. Very little of my current (small) inventory is of the poly bag size, but I thought I would start with something small to test the waters. Unquestionably, anything I ship as a "parcel" (i.e., in a box) will have tracking, whether to Canada or US or International.

As to risk tolerance, that's a bit of a trick question. Flippantly, I'd say that I don't want any losses, but that's not realistic. I admit that I've been spooked a bit after watching too many YouTube videos on eBay scams. Most buyers are honest, I know, but it only takes one bad experience to wipe out any gains. No matter how much preparation and cookie jar insurance, it's money that cannot be recovered, a lost opportunity in investment terms.

Still, I'm beginning to think that I'm worrying too much. Just factor it into the final price, just like other unknown costs and risks.

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

-Tracking is insurance for the seller because it prevents INR cases. 

-An item is worth what it is worth. A $25 Lego set can be sold for $25, not $25+$15 shipping, since that would be $40, and it is not worth $40.

-So your option is either to sell it for $23 BIN + $2 shipping, or $10 BIN+$15 shipping.

-With the $2 shipping, you make another $13 before fees. If you choose to send it tracking, you're paying $13 in insurance to protect yourself from losing $25.

-I chose simple numbers that might not be completely accurate. You can plug any other numbers into this to determine whether it makes sense to use tracking. In most cases, it won't make sense. 

-Keep in mind, you are going to lose items to INRs. 

-These might be genuine. These might not be genuine. It doesn't matter, you still have to refund before the case deadline to avoid a defect. 

-Unless a buyer's profile is littered with comments received or comments left for others that state their item didn't arrive, it's best to just assume they are being genuine. If you do this, you can usually arrange for them to contact you when the item arrives, and they can Paypal you back the refund.

-You will probably make more money by refunding INRs and increasing your profit margin. INRs are very over stated. I think if you poll most people, you might find they are getting 1 or at most 2 percent INRs for untracked items. 

-The best way to stop INRs is to change your shipping service to 'Economy Shipping', not lettermail. You can still state that economy shipping is fulfilled by lettermail. Economy Shipping gives the buyer a more realistic delivery window (Up to 18 business days), which prevents genuine INRs where the item is delayed by Canada Post. 

[femmefan1946]

https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/information/app/far/business/findARate?execution=e1s1

Play with this.

Use various postal codes and zipcodes.

I use K1A 0A6 / V8W 1P6/ B3J 3A5

and for the USA 90210/20500

And also different weights and dimensions

Use metric.

Canada Post went metric in 1974 and any others will be guesswork.

There is also dimensional weight, which I don't understand.

Sign up for a Solutions for Small Business card which gives you some discounts and occasional perks.

https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/business/small-business.page?

With Lego as your product, you will rarely be using LetterPost, because that has a maximum thickness of 2cm and bricks plus padding (which would be needed) will exceed that.

There is an ongoing discussion about Small Packet USA and Tracked Packet USA which is worth following. There is no right answer, because so much depends on the category, the buyer demographic, and whether or not the (fake) "tracking" number of SP-USA is actually recorded or not.

[marnotom!]

---

@ilikehockeyjerseys wrote:

-Tracking is insurance for the seller because it prevents INR cases. . .

---

I appreciate the gist of what you're communicating here, but it might send the wrong message to a new seller.  Tracking does not prevent INR cases in the sense that a buyer can file a claim for a not received item whether it's tracked or not, and whether or not the item has online viewable proof of delivery.

In addition, if an INR claim is filed for an item where there is no online viewable proof of delivery, the seller is not going to prevail in the claim, and that's where insurance--be it from the carrier or cookie jar insurance--comes into play.

Tracking--or more accurately, online viewable proof of delivery--is defence against fraudulent claims of non-delivery, not legitimate ones, and even then one has to ensure that the item is shipped to the address provided on the transaction page, nowhere else.

Sorry if this comes off as being nit-picky.  I thought your post was generally very good, but this point needed a bit more elaboration.

[jorstev-5425]

That’s so **bleep** that it’s “not a valid choice” yet they offer it as a choice…

[ricarmic]

As a note, you're responding to a comment made a year ago.

I'm not sure what you mean here, there are lots of options offered as choices which are not tracked, my point was to be careful about registration because it shows tracking (within Canada, sometimes outside Canada) but the rules at the time and still in place as far as I know, say that registration doesn't count (I think that was true for both eBay and PAYPAL but PAYPAL is moot now). Having said this I expect if one has a case with a registered item that does show delivery, one would probably win, however if it went outside Canada there's a good chance the tracking loses updates once it leaves the country.

Sending non-tracked is a seller's choice and the seller bears the risk of doing so, it has been this way for a very long time. The laws of large numbers (for most categories) say that if you sell enough stuff you'll be fine, the problem is for low volume sellers, especially those in higher risk categories.

[reallynicestamps]

ZOMBIE THREAD FROM 2021.

The problem with zombie threads is not only that the original question may not match the current question, but that the advice may be out of date .