Ebay Shipping Question

[jackatl]

For everything I have sold on eBay, I have always used Delivery Confirmation. Does insurance do the same thing, but have the added level that your shipment is insured? Basically, I am asking if I can just insure my items instead of using Delivery Confirmation. Any input would be appreciated. Thanks guys,

Jack

 

[cmcjr99]

they are quite different...

for starters , insurance costs significantly more than DC....

personally i use DC on EVERY item ... it's pretty much a no-brainer in my opinion since it's FREE when you purchase your shipping online (either via paypal or directly from the usps website)..... add in the fact that the charge for buying postage online is lower than in the actual physical post office and you can really see a huge savings (a 3 ounce domestic package is 1.64 WITH DC if you print your own labels at home compared to 1.95 + an additional .85 for DC or 1.85 or more for insurance..)

other points to consider :
insurance does not qualify as proof of delivery in the eyes of pay pal so should the item get lost in them mail and the buyer opened a claim , you'd likely lose that case automatically....

should the package be lost or damaged in transit , the insurance would enable the seller to be reimbursed for the value of the item.....frankly all that means is that when you end up having to refund the buyer , you can do so with the proceeds of the insurance claim - you'll still either be stuck with a damaged item or no item if it was lost....

that said , if the item is unique or expensive (my personal threshold is $50) , then i will add insurance in addition to the DC.....simple reason : if the item is lost or damaged i may be able to recoup the money from the PO , but i'd still have to refund the buyer and would obviously not be able to replace a unique item or afford the loss of an expensive one...

 

[jackatl]

great answer, thanks for the clarification!

 

[turkeyred]

great answer, thanks for the clarification!

I agree....."great answer".....thanks for clearing some things up for me!

Paul

 

[dragonslayer913]

...And to add DC doesn't guarantee its delivered to the correct address..it only guarantees it was delivered.

 

[cmcjr99]

...And to add DC doesn't guarantee its delivered to the correct address..it only guarantees it was delivered.

very much correct....which means that for BUYERS , DC is not really a help but to SELLERS , even if the item is misdelivered , pay pal will almost always side with the buyer in a dispute....

that said , even having a package with DC delivered to the correct address does not guarantee that the correct item (or ANY item for that matter) was actually inside the package.....i personally have had one empty package arrive with DC....fortunately for me the seller was honest and acknowledged his mistake , but i also know of a few shady characters who have tried to game the system in this area.....

long story short - NOTHING is 100% fool proof , but i personally still feel much safer as a seller WITH DC and as long as it's available for free merely by printing labels via pay pal then you have nothing to lose by using it...

 

[jwj20]

To piggy back on, as this has happened to me as well.

Some buyers will try to get refunds just because they didn't want to spend money. So they may try to claim slightly damaged cards, refuse return shipping and demand a partial refund while using the feedback hostage. If I don't trust a buyer (or the item is a rarity or high valued) I'll put on insurance. Because any dings or lost items, I get reimbursed entirely for what I sold for.

The one time it happened to me a buyer claimed he never received because I only sent using insurance. Paypal sided with them and reimbursed. I filed a lost item report with the USPS through the military base I was at. Long story short, the buyer got hit hard with an investigation into mail fraud, paypal got dragged in for aiding without validation on arrival. Paypal refunded the money, e-Bay suspended the user (he's listed as no longer a member) and I got a nice personal apology from an e-Bay phone call.

The thing that use to kill me was in the Baltimore post offices, packages would get lost A LOT (I had 6 packages lost in the span of one month once using two different post offices) and I'd be out of money as the seller/trader. Fortunately, I knew this problem existed in Baltimore from losing personal letters so I always used insurance for packages over 10 dollars. This was before I gained my military clearances (I'm a civilian on loan to the military) to use and start sending through the USPS location on post.

Claude is absolutely right though. Baltimore is a rare example of what could go horrifically wrong with the USPS. I'd prefer DC anytime first but use insurance as a back-up only if I feel that I completely need it.

 

[bear0555]

For the most part, shipping with Paypal DC is the best option. Insurance is rarely necessary, though some good points have been made here about it. I only use insurance on items I can't afford to lose - items valued at much more than what I usually ship. If you ship 100 items of the same value (high or low end) and one gets lost, you'd lose more money buying insurance on all 100 items verses refunding for the one lost item. Add on the headache of filing an insurance claim and I rarely can justify buying insurance.