eBay Should Implement a Policy for Lost in Transit

[1688store]

Hi everyone,

I personally think eBay should implement a policy regarding item lost in transit. We as sellers should not be held responsible for item lost in transit because our responsibility is to send the item off within a timely manner and if the item is lost in transit that is way out of our control.

Also eBay should implement a policy that if the buyer doesn't use any shipping method with tracking code the seller is not liable for any item lost in transit.

However if they selected a shipping method with tracking code and the item is lost in transit then the seller can help the buyer try to recover the goods or get compensation for the buyer.

[countessalmirena]

@k1ooo-slr-sales

---

@k1ooo-slr-saleswrote:

 (something secure like an old jam jar should be sufficient).

---

Perhaps Fortnum & Mason jam jars. They sound particularly secure... "fort"... "masonry"...

---

@k1ooo-slr-saleswrote:
[...] some chocolate [...] eating chocolate [...]

---

Any plan which involves chocolate is, I think, a winner.

---

@k1ooo-slr-saleswrote:

Step 7 - Make this self insurance activity a fun way of thumbing your nose at eBay over their buyer-centric MBG and stop sweating the small stuff.

---

Yes... exactly. (And besides, one needs all of one's sweat for the exercise to work off all the chocolate...)

[digital*ghost]

---

@1688storewrote:

This is just an example but it doesn't mean that it will never happen in reality because there are too many cyber criminals online.

---

It might happen, sure, but why isolate just 100 sales to get your percentage? You have to look at the bigger picture.

What if, over 200 sales, instead only experience a 1% INR rate after adding 20c to all your prices. Your extra 20c per sale amounts to $40, and you've only had to cover $12.40 in losses, leaving an extra $27.60 in your "insurance fund". Then the next 100 sales, you experience a 10% loss rate, so you have $20 plus $27.60 and need to cover $62, leaving a loss of $14.60. The next 100 sales you experience a 2% INR rate, so again you need to cover $12.40 and have an additional $20, ultimately leaving a deficit over 400 sales of $7.

Increase the added amount to 30c, and over those 400 sales you get $120, but have refunded $88.20 from 14 INR cases (an actual INR rate of 3.5% - however even that is quite high. I send more than 100 untracked large letters a week, and have a loss rate of less than 1%, it may be different in other categories, but I would be surprised if anyone has a long term lost rate in excess of 5% - there are scammers out there, to be sure, and even one is one to many in my book, but when it comes to business, IMHO, basing these kinds of decisions on "what if" rather than "what is", is not a good strategy. 

[brerrabbit585]

---

@1688storewrote:

For buyer the tracking code is the proof that the seller in an actual fact has sent the items and not giving false information.

---

You're surely not trying to tell me that you've sent 100 items with tracking and they've all got lost in transit, or that's what the buyers are saying?

Even if only 10 "get lost" (don't arrive) but have tracking, the product you're selling is probably not viable on ebay  - unless you can ask enough extra to cover the losses.  If you can't do that then your product is attracting the wrong sort of people by its very nature.  Either that or they think your products aren't up to scratch and they think it's easier to claim they didn't arrive than to claim not as described.

[k1ooo-slr-sales]

I hadn’t even considered looking at what you sell until a few minutes ago as it was not relevant for the points I wanted to make.  I was concerned with low cost and high cost regardless of what they were.

When I did look at your items it was to see what the cost of tracked postage would be on low cost items.  For 2 x NSW Red P plates the Buy-Now price with free postage is $5, by Express postage it would cost $17, and with a courier it would cost $70.

For many of the items I looked at you offer Express Post for $12 additional and Courier for $65 additional.  Thinking this was just coincidence that I had chosen a few items with these postage costs, I looked at some of your balloon listings. 10 balloons had the $12 Express Post and $65 Courier option OR Buy-Now free postage cost of $10.

In fact, every listing I looked at had these same options.  Admittedly I didn’t look at all 113 of your listings, but I did look at plenty (until I tired of it).

For me, Express Post is not as Express as it is for others as I live outside of the Express Guarantee zones, and I usually end up having to go to courier depots to collect couriered items, so neither of these would entice me to pay extra.

No wonder your buyers are not choosing tracked options.  Who in their right mind will pay $65 courier costs on a $5 item?

Spoiler

March done

[countessalmirena]

@davewil1964

---

@davewil1964wrote:

Even using the various SOG Acts, the seller must be able to PROVE postage/delivery to carrier, which an untracked letter doesn't qualify as.

---

True, Dave. The onus is on the seller to prove delivery to the carrier to a standard that meets trhe required level of proof in law - but untracked letters can still qualify if the seller keeps good records, from what I recall. You're so right about the implication; sellers who send untracked might be telling themselves that the Act gives them a legal exemption from proving delivery (cold moral comfort though that might be on eBay), but they may very well forget that they do need to provde delivery to the carrier to disport themselves comfortably on the moral high ground. Too, it's a relevant point for sellers who are relying on the Act selling on other platforms or via other outlets (as opposed to sellers operating under eBay's user agreement and the provisions concerning eBay's money-back guarantee).

As digital*ghost mentioned, some sort of record of lodgement (self-maintained manifest of lodgement, mailing statement, whatever it may be) is mostly going to be accepted in law, except in cases where the seller gives the member/judge reason to doubt his probity. I know of a case where someone mocked up a book supposedly keeping a record of outgoing parcels, although I don't know the seller's name (judge was being discreet about no identifying details but liked to tell a good dinner story). I believe the same pen in increasingly bad handwriting was being used throughout, there was no previous mailing book to illustrate lodgements further back than a few weeks, and enough non-existent postcodes to make a nonsense of the whole thing. There might have been other clues, but I'm not even sure I heard the whole anecdote.

(On second thoughts, I must have, because I remember the punch line. The judge said something like "I didn't accept his book as reliable evidence, so I threw the book at him", and laughed.)

[springyzone]

---

@1688storewrote:

I'll give you an example:

Buyer selected untracked shipping - Seller should not be responsible for items lost in transit because the seller only handing over the items to the carrier to deliver to the buyer.

Buyer selected tracked shipping - Seller should help the buyer because the seller can get compensation from the carrier for items lost in transit.

eBay should add this to their existing policies to better cover sellers and buyers.

---

You're missing the pivotal point.

And that is-how can any buyer know you're telling the truth and really did post anything? Even a big & honest business could make a mistake & as for the others, in your own words, the world is full of scammers.

Your solution with untracked shipping would encourage scamming sellers. Believe me, there were quite a few around in the early ebay days, a buyer had to tread very carefully.

Your problem right now, as a seller, is what buyers had to put up with then. They paid money, maybe even spent time & effort going into a bank to pay it in, and they sometimes lost the lot with no come back. Sellers could lie & say they posted it or they could do what most of the scammers did back then-just ignore messages once they got the money.

Do you think that was fair?

If you as as a seller have dozens of INR cases being opened against you, then I think you're being scammed for sure.

Australia post in the last 20 years has not failed to deliver anything to me (only things that ever went missing were ebay purchases, funny that). What's happened is the power now is with the buyer so that's where some of the scamming is being done.

You don't like it now, do you? 

Buyers didn't like it back then either, when it was done in reverse.

You're calling for a solution. So did buyers back then, which is why ebay  changed.

Solution is in your hands. You can put up your prices to cover tracking.

If you can't do that, you'll need to put up your prices (as K100 suggested) enough to cover shop lifting.

But if ebay & paypal went back to the bad old days of sellers being able to steal our money on untracked items, I'm telling you now I'd be out of here or only looking at tracked items.

[1688store]

You have to understand that buyers like cheaper price and if someone is selling a same item as you for only $10 and you sell for $15. In this case no one will buy from you because your items are too expensive and not competitive on eBay.

[1688store]

eBay is a market place and anything can happen from time to time. The amount of buyers is determined by many factors and not just based on one factor.

[springyzone]

---

@1688storewrote:

eBay is a market place and anything can happen from time to time. The amount of buyers is determined by many factors and not just based on one factor.

---

Trust and reliability are big factors though.

A business can't afford to have it's name trashed too much. Ebay is a business.

As for buyers not buying your item if it is dearer than other similar ones-they might, if you can convince them in your ad that yours is better quality or that yours will be arriving a lot faster than a similar one over in China etc

[imastawka]

---

@1688storewrote:

You have to understand that buyers like cheaper price and if someone is selling a same item as you for only $10 and you sell for $15. In this case no one will buy from you because your items are too expensive and not competitive on eBay.

---

I can only suggest that if you are trying to compete with Chinese sellers, then you won't win.

Either you find a cheaper source, and self insure, or ebay is not the place for you.