How many items have Australia Post lost of your items lately?

[mcoptimus]

As it stands I am averaging 3 a week over around 80 PB2's sent per week. A few months back I sent 16 PB's out, gave them direct to the local PO to send and none of them got to the customers! I went in and questioned them to only be met with a blank face and a care factor of less than zero. $400 just went down the drain...

As a big majority of my items I sell are very small and light weight I send them in a PB2 and slap a prepaid $1.20 sticker on it. If I register the item I would have to put that extra charge on the item and then it would make my item price above the competition and I wouldn't sell anything. So I'm kinda stuck.

So what do you guys do for sending small items that you litterally can't register because of competition pricing?

Also another question. How tough are you on your customers if AP lose a C & S parcel? The item is worth more than the standard insurance ( even though you state they can pay the extra in your listings T & C's) Do you help the customer out and send another item or tell them tough tittes, buy another.

I am very soft here and will usually send out another item and just try to claim back what I can from AP. I know its not doing my end figures any good but I do it to avoid upsetting the customer and get negative feedback.

Cheers.

[davewil1964]

i have had all my sales delivered and have certainly received all my purchases.

i have had a couple of RTSs where the buyer is uncontactable, so I will say none.

Only about 10 sends a week, though.

[*crikey*mate*]

As a seller, I have only had one where Aus post could be held at fault with certainty.

As a buyer, I had a spate of them maybe 6 or 7? It turned out that there is another street similarly named to mine, and it appears the postie kept getting them mixed up - took a while to work out, but then aus post did take responsibiluity for the lost items that did have tracking,

[*crikey*mate*]

So what do you guys do for sending small items that you litterally can't register because of competition pricing?

I simply don't sell anything of real value to post this way as every time I post in this way, i know I am risking it not being delivered (or at least a buyer claiming it wasn't delivered)

so the few times that i now do list things of a small value, i hope like craZY for weeks the item gets there and check my messages with great apprehension that a costomer has contacted me saying it's not here, and if they do, I am prepared to offer an immediate refund, as it was a risk i knowingly took.

(I use snmall items with cheap post for free post to help out my DSRs

[chameleon54]

The rate of lost mail items does ebb and flow a bit for me, but at a very low rate. It ranges from 0.5 % ( one in 200 ) to 1% ( when I get a little batch go missing ) All of the items that are lost are unregistered. Although tracked items make up 40% of my sent items, I have not lost any of these, so people can draw there own conclusions about this. ( I do think most lost items are genuine ). I just add a small amount to the post cost of all untracked items to cover the occasional lost item and other problems. A bit like self insurance. When one goes missing, I just refund or send another one without worrying about it. Its all just part of doing business on ebay. ( the defect rate thing is a small concern though. Is it fair to hit sellers with a defect because AP lost the item and the seller does the right thing and refunds ? )

[clarry100]

We send almost all our items out by large letter. ie no tracking and no seller protection as a result.

We use C&S tracked satchel if a buyer buys multiple items where the total comes up to about $50 or more.

We estimate about 1 in 500 items are reported lost by AP (ie never make it).

We just ask them to validate the address we used first.

Then check with their local PO to see if they are holding it there.

Then if the address is good we simply send out another item.

But our stuff averages about $10 per item, so its simpler and cheaper for us to self insure by replacing lost items. We can't force it to an INR case with PayPal, we would simply lose each and every one.

If we had to resort to sending everything tracked etc to get the seller protection the cost would mean we would never sell anyhting. So not much choice for us as we see it. Possibly means that occasionally we suffer a scamming buyer but meh!!

When we send out another item we put a note against the FB we left for the buyer that simply states that item was lost in transit and we replaced the item on <date>. That way other sellers can see if a buyer is a repeat offender and possible scammer. Once we replace we almost always get a POS for it.

This is how we handle this stuff.

[phorum_junkie*]

Not one in all the many years I have been selling. Even those who appeared to have gone missing have turned up eventually either with the buyer or returned to me.

[tonalidesigns]

Maybe one or two every 1000 items that we can't eventually find.

The sort of numbers you are quoting are very high.

[i-once-was-bump]

I think you should be taking this up with Aus Post because those numbers are shocking.

There is something very wrong somewhere along the processing of your parcels.

Also I would consider contacting the local police depending on how helpful Aus Post are when you contact them.

[nevillesdaughter]

Over 10 years/6000 parcels sent, I've only ever had 4 go missing. In 2 of those cases I'm fairly sure I was being scammed, 1 parcel was signed for by a thief, and the 4th parcel was unexplained (and it was before I started using tracking and signature on delivery).

I've had a few come back uncollected for various reasons - addresseedid'nt get the card, an error in the address etc but Iam overall very pleases with the Aust Post service,

Your statistics are appalling and I would definitely bestarting some sort of investigation into what is going on.

Good luck,

Marina.