Advice on selling low cost items and including tracking...

[viva_celebrity_clippings]

So recently I sold a DVD to a person in the US.

A few days before I sold one to a person in the same state.

I sent both in timely fashion. One arrived safely, the other did not.

I issued a refund as I didn't want to risk any defects on my account.  I now want to use tracking on all sales to avoid this happening again.

My usual items are clippings packs which range from $1.99 to whatever the buyer will pay.

My question is, is it worth including tracking on items under a certain price range? (say $5.00 for example) Do you think it will put buyers off adding tracking to the postage cost?

I've been selling on eBay for a long time [in spurts though not constantly] and this is my first ever "Item Not Recieved".

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[jfmgray]

The cost of overseas tracking for low cost items makes it prohibitive. If you are sending DVDs at letter rate you are already spending $8 - $12 for postage. Even with tracking you are far from guaranteed a refund from eBay if tracking shows the item was not delivered. 

I send about 10% of my sales overseas at letter rates.  If I charged for tracked shipping, I would not have most of those overseas sales as the buyeres would not pay the cost. To minimise my risks, I do not post to many countries that I consider higher risks of lost items.  I only use tracking for the very expensive items.  Can't remember the last time an overseas item went missing.

PS - for large letters the UC customs slip number is scanned by USPS and often (but not always) shows up as a tracking number on eBay.   I recently became a Top Rated seller in the USA on the back of 100% of my items had legitimate tracking scans recorded on eBay even though most were just the custom slip number. Now dowm to 70%