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@mandy-gs wrote:

Thank you all for you feedback and opinions. I have been second guessing all postage / ebay selling practices lately as I have come across a lot of INRs and people being nasty in messages. I think I have been making too many decisions based on fear (lowered prices to get sales, no tracking to make it cheaper etc) and this has left me open to even more scammers. I feel like I am being held over a barrel just so I can try and make a dollar.

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I know where you're coming from because I've been there myself, but you can't do everything based on fear.  I know it's wrong and one feels violated when it happens, but as a seller I've learnt to accept that stealing is going to happen occasionally and it's just not worth making everyone else pay for a signature because of it - especially if the scammers still get around it.  

If you add the cost of a signature to all your items you'll pay more in fees and you may sell less if postage is too expensive.  It depends on the price of your items but if they're fairly low I think it's better to just add 50c or $1 to your postage and throw it in a container to cover any losses.  That way you won't feel quite so bad when someone scams you - they'll be stealing from your other buyers rather than from you, if that makes any sense.  You could add a dollar or two to the price of your items instead of adding it to the postage.  It'd still be cheaper than sending as a parcel with SOD and wouldn't slow your sales as much.

I lose very few items but I know clothing is a lot more subject to scammers than what I sell.  However, I expect scamming will eventually spread to the type of things I sell and that's why I added a bit to my postage to cover potential losses.  Unfortunately the honest buyers are paying more to cover what the scammers steal, but that applies to everything we buy in b&m stores too.