"Need customer feedback on shipping" Topic

Of all the things I've dealt with in starting up a new company, nothing compares with shipping rates.

I'm a customer too and I hate it when companies charge way more for shipping than the shipping rate on the package. So I've been charging at the most economical rate possible (barring the slow boat to China). But a problem companies deal with is getting a message from the customer saying that they never got the package. This is especially a problem for me, because as a start-up I have very high overhead and it is painful to ship out $100 USD worth of models all over again -- it comes out of my pocket.

So recently I started getting signature confirmations for US priority mail packages, and shipping by Express Mail International for overseas. This gives me a signature so I can tell the customer who signed for the package. But now people are complaining about the rate -- it's $2.10 USD more locally, and $25 USD shipping for international, much more than I used to charge.

What to do?

What do you guys think of this idea? I give you two shipping options. One says that you get signature confirmed delivery, at the higher rate. The other says just ship it a cheaper way, but you will not hold me responsible for lost packages.

Would you think that's fair? If your package went missing, would you honor your end of the arrangement? Thanks for any feedback.

If you offer insurance and the buyer rejects it, I don't think you should be held responsible. I prefer to buy from vendors who offer insurance and I don't mind paying extra for it. I'm guessing this is a minority opinion, but we will see.

I'm not talking about insurance per se, I mean a shipping method that provides signature confirmation. I thought that would be a happy medium -- insurance is even more expensive (although I should note that Express Mail International does indeed give up to $100 USD insurance, so overseas orders would be insured to at least that expense).

Personally I'm opposed to signature confirmation, simply because it means if I'm not here to get the package I have to usually wait until the next day and then go pick it up at the post office.

On the one hand I can understand that you want a way to confirm that the customer received the package, but from the consumer end of things I can say that there are items I've elected not to purchase solely because of shipping charges, and that most of the time signature confirmation is a hassle I can do without.

I don't like signature confirmation, becuase like jbenton, I'm usually not home to sign for it.

So what would you guys do if you don't get a sig confirm shipment, and the package never arrives? What do you expect of the seller?

As a general rule of thumb, provided there's good faith evidence to believe it isn't the seller's fault I'll suck it up. I might be unusual in that regard.

You might want to look into delivery confirmation, which perhaps isn't as reliable as signature confirmation but it is cheaper (about 60-odd cents when sent on a priority package I believe) – it's what I use whenever I trade miniatures etc. online.

In the US, if you set up an account with USPS and print & pay for your Priority Mail labels online, you get Delivery Confirmation for free.

They also give you a minor discount when shipping International Flat Rate.

Regards, the Gorb

You may find, even if they don't pay for a signed service, that you are responsible. Let's face it, if the customer has paid and says it hasn't arrived, what are you going to realistically say?
"Sorry but I'm not sending it again so you've lost your money"?
"You're a liar, I know you receved it"?

We had one recently, sent it FOUR times. Never arrived (allegedly), but short of calling the customer a liar (never a good thing) what else can you do? We eventually had to apologise that we couldn't afford to keep shipping into a black hole and refund his money.

Personally, if something goes astray it's one of the costs of the business. On the other hand, I ALWAYS send the second one signed for.

As for the cost of postage, I always do 1st class or Airmail – used to do surface when I started but there is too much risk of it taking so long that you lose a lot of goodwill.

I also charge a fixed rate. Sometimes I pay more than I get, sometimes the customer pays more, but it generally balances out and is a lot less hassle than overcharging/then refund any excess or 'wait until I find out exactly how much it costs and I'll bill you'.

The root of your trouble is that you have problems with undelivered parcels. It's not really about options or charges for signature on delivery.

Therefore this is not really a matter of fairness or for reaching consensus amongst the good people of TMP or various mail groups it's a matter for the law.

As you are in the States I suggest this site as a good starting place – tinyurl.com/6cnnua – I assume you already comply with the FTC laws.

In the EU consumers have more rights. Your section on "Risk of loss" – tinyurl.com/5tza9ywhich – already shifts the onus of undelivered parcels to the customer which is illegal in the EU. See GeoffQRF's post.

I think PayPal is the real killer. As you only accept payments by PayPal, if the customer raises a complaint with PayPal and don't have proof of delivery then you are screwed. PayPal require you to prove that you have delivered the goods or pay up. I'm surprised this hasn't happened already.

I think this answers your question about charging for a signature. In the UK I can get a signature and insurance in most places in the world for an extra £3.60 GBP or £5.60 GBP depending on the amount of insurance.

On a personal note, I refuse to do business with anyone who clearly states that they are not responsible for the delivery of the goods as you do at tinyurl.com/5tza9y – it's a strong indication that if things go wrong I will be out of pocket.

Good luck with the startup.

Not to mention the fact that, if you tell the customer 'tough, it got lost' (which is what you are, in effect, doing) you pretty much guarantee to lose that customer, plus most of his club/friends, plus anyone else he tells…

(As an aside, is there a US equivalent of the EU Distance Selling regs?)

GeoffQRF: I can't find anything specific other than the FTC link I posted. Let me know if you find anything.

Coming in a little late here, but..

As you only take Paypal you are stuck with their delivery guarentee (ie if it doesn't arrive you have to provide a replacement or refund). Given that I would assume that, from a business perspective, you really need to use insured delivery. My personal experience is in the book business (as a second hand dealer in the UK so different laws and deals) and previously at a multinational corporate level. But packaged figures come into similar weight/size catagories as books so I'm certain that you can get a much better deal than the ones you mention. If it helps, I know that most US book dealers now use the US Post Office as their international rates are very good. You need to look carefully, most couriers provide a level of insurance with each different service they provide and comparing them is complex and time consuming. They all (UPS, FedEX, DHK etc) ofer discount deals as well once you reach regular shipping levels (often starting at the 10-20 packets a week scale), and if you are located close to one of the couriers offices they do other deals for 'no pick up' customers (as does the Post Office).

I realy think you need to 'bite the bullet' as even in the US once you have taken the customers money, failure to deliver is your problem, and a court will only let you off if you can prove that you shippped the product AND have reasonable grounds to believe that it was sucessfully delivered. Note also that for 'damaged in transit' goods it's technically the sender that has to claim from the carrier (yip, you again).

Tom..

"Note also that for 'damaged in transit' goods it's technically the sender that has to claim from the carrier (yip, you again)"

Privity of contract – the contract for shpping is between you and the shipper, not between the customer and the shipper. Hence it is you and not the customer who needs to make the claim.

I for got to add,

As you explicitly state FOB, you have to tell the carrier this (as you are passing the contract to a third party, in effect you are only an agent for the customer) and exsure that you get a copy of the shipping contract to the customer (yet another thing to prove in court if it all goes wrong).

AND as you use Paypal, you are stuck with the FTC rules in the US and a liable to refund any order not DELIVERED within 30 days (FOB or no FOB).

Tom..

Khurasan Miniatures,
I think you have over reacted to one lost shipment.
Shipments go astray and sometimes they come home. Send replacement orders with a signature confirmation, but not every order.

USPS offers free tracking and free delivery confirmation if you pay online

We and our customers have benefitted from a flat rate shipping plan, less time consuming and more predictable.

Lost shipments are a cost of doing business

You may be right, wargames mom! Still have t think about how to set shipping. I would like to find some happy medium. What I am actually most interested in is seeing what customers think is fair, not seeing what legal rights each party has, so hearing from more customers would be good. Thanks.

Oh, that one is easy. The customer will think it is fair when he pays for his parcel and receives it (ideally with extra freebies).

As a customer, if I have paid for the goods, I expect to receive them.

If I was asked to pay extra to guarantee delivery or replacement, then I probably wouldn't do business with you in the first place.

I think you should do what most businesses do. Charge a flat rate for shipping that is reasonable and account for the cost of lost product through slightly increasing the prices on all of your products as an insurance policy. This is what most of the big box stores do to offset the cost of theft and I would think it would work well in the this model as well. Track this small markup over time and determine if you are covering your out of pocket for the occasional lost order or not and adjust. Then always send signiture confirmed on the second sending of an order and track any customers that do have lost shipments to prevent repeated instances.

As a customer I am always annoyed when I have to trudge down to the post office to sign for something I missed but I defintely understand. It never prevents me from buying from someone again. The only thing that does that is poor communication on delayed orders.

Ok, a customer here. I live in Sweden, most of the times I order stuff from the UK or Germany, but sometimes from the US. I order miniatures, books, games and model trains.

I have no problem with signed delivery or equivalent if I place a large order (I don't want it to get lost more than you do). The hassle of having to be at home when the delivery guy arrives unless I want to go to their depot to get the parcel is acceptable, on large or very costly orders. That said, I want to spend 20% maximum on postage and packing on large orders. A large order for me is somewhere around the $150 USD mark (around €100.00 EUR or £70). So $25 USD postage is pretty high, considering that if I order something from you, a new company, it would very likely be a smaller order to check you out. Now, if the stuff is bulky and heavy (like books or resin terrain) I can accept higher postage, but that is more acceptable to me, because I know the stuff costs more to send.

Flat rate shipping, or a fixed percentage would be ideal for me; I can calculate it beforehand and decide. Too high and I don't place the order, that simple.

Now for lost packages. I expect the dealer to at least try to find out what has happened (and I expect that for ebay sellers too). If I haven't paid for insured shipping, I at least want you to help me find out what happened to my stuff. This includes details like when you sent it, which post office you left it with, when, where etc. How much you paid for the actual postage, all details that can be of use to me when I go down to my post office and ask about a missing package. Most dealers just suck it up and resend the goods; making me a happy customer that will buy stuff again from that dealer. One dealer sent me photos of the package complete with receipts from the post office for the missing parcel -- I didn't get the stuff but I felt that the guy at least had tried to do his part. Next time I bought some stuff from him I got a load of freebies in the box as he had remembered me, which also made me a happy customer.

One other point, if you are making the minis, then a $100 USD order isn't costing you that -- the lead cost will be quite low, OK there are time costs as well.

I think Wargames Mom has got it right.

Losses due to things going astray in the post are very occasional occurences, and they should be regarded just as a cost of doing business.

Rather than forcing every customer to pay higher shipping costs why not simply calculate your losses as a % of your annual sales and add that to you shipping charges.

So if you loosing .25% of shipments then in future add .25% of an order to the shipping charge as part of your "handling charge".

No one is going to notice or complain about $.25 USD on a $100 USD order.

As a customer, I like it when I have options. Offer me Signed delivery vs insurance vs proof of delivery. And then be up front (at least in small print) about what that means. Have a "Lost and Damaged Package Policy," and say that in the rare occassions when something goes wrong, you have a mandatory 4 week "wait and see" policy for the packages sent without any sort of confirmation. Make it 2 Weeks for Delivery Confirmation (which is free if you ship priority mail from the PayPal site), and 3 days if the package was insured.

Setting the customer's expectations up front can go a long way toward managing those expectations later. And YES, you can phrase it in a way so that it doesn't scare them off but reassures them. It's a matter of carefully choosing the language in your statements.

Having read your "Ordering information
By ordering you are deemed to have accepted the terms and conditions on this page." link

I would not place an order with you.

I saw another thing: You will only replace miscast figures if the customer returns them. I won't order ANYTHING from ANY company with those terms. In short: if your miniatures are miscast, YOU have done wrong. To have the customer pay more (i.e. return shipping) to get the miniatures he has payed for isn't an option. Borderlines on fraud, in my opionion…

Nice miniatures though, I hope you sort out the shipping conundrum.