In efforts to prevent fraud and scams to my customer and myself I have been using a few safe guards, but I'm finding that as business grows, so do problems.
PayPal has a buyer/seller protection program. The guidelines are rather simple and include ship to confirmed addresses and use tracking. I am currently using first class USPS with delivery confirmation and completely blocked orders from unconfirmed address. If a non-receipt of order dispute arises I can provide this information and be awarded as the winner. But, I don't really feel like a winner. I might have the money in my hand, but the poor customer has nothing. I'm an optimistic person and try not to think that customer is trying to get over and that the postal service does deliver packages to their destinations. But I know better than that. I received a neighbors retirement check and hand delivered it myself. Once one of my packages was delivered, but returned to the post office, then delivered again because the package had scribbles on it. Also, dishonest people will scam when they see the opportunity.
After receiving an order of $300+, I decided that delivery confirmation wasn't enough and had it insured. With insured packages of $200+ the recipient has to sign for it. The postage was roughly $5 extra which is well worth the peace of mind that I was protected and a full investigation would be launched if a problem did arise. Since then, I have been insuring orders of $30+ and not even charging extra for it.
I have thought about changing my s/h rates from by number of items to a scale based on the price of the order.
What precautions or measures do you use to safe guard your shipments and insure delivery? If you have any shipping advice please share!
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
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