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Shipping with no tracking
 

I have an item that is very small. In fact it could easily fit in an envelope and be mailed with just a stamp. I think using a regular stamp might make a customer angry. However I could print the postage through Stamps.com

I know there is a metric for delivering on time, but is it enforced? Will my account go under review if I buy just First Class envelope with no tracking?

I sell about 30 of these a day so I could save about $450 a month on paying the extra for tracking.

Re: Shipping with no tracking
 

Provide the tracking is their policy and you should follow it if want to keep the account for long term. You make money, they make money, and USPS also make money :)

I know that you can save big money on shipping but make no sense if the account is gone. Something is always better than nothing

Re: Shipping with no tracking
 

I'm just not sure all of these metrics are really enforced. They probably are. I see these people selling items for $1.19 WITH shipping. Hard to believe they are willing to take a loss on all those orders.

Re: Shipping with no tracking
 

They really do. I got warning before for not provide tracking number. And that is just for 3 orders

Re: Shipping with no tracking
 

I sell items for around £3.50 each and put a 2nd class stamp on them, eBay know I do this as They give me the option to select 2nd class standard in the shipping options when I create my listing, never had any problems.

Re: Shipping with no tracking
 

I'm not sure if you can do that for all of the orders, but 65% of my orders shipped without tracking numbers. I feel the same way as yours. I could save some money by doing that. My account metrics are all green. Of course, I did that after the account passed review.

when you want to ship your orders by using stamps. I suggest that you follow the checklist below:

1. order total less than $50 ( scammers don't like to scam these inexpensive items - it's hard to create multiple buyer accounts on Amazon, Scammers or competitors don't have much time for this )
2. make sure the buyer name has the same name on delivery address. ( This must be a real buyer)
3. Now you can line up all the orders with stamps on the envelops and take a picture of them. ( in case you hit a claim, at least you have something to show them )
4. prepare an good explanation letter in case a buyer claims " item not received" (I have never had this "Claim", so I don't know. but I like to prepare everything in advance).

First-Class usually takes 3-7 business days, If you receive NO claim after 15 days, I would say 90% you have NO problem with it.

Re: Shipping with no tracking
 

We ship lots of goods, less than $20 without tracking. Never had a problem, sell on all EU and USA,Canada and Japan. The odd scammer who says he's not had the goods, just refund him. The amount you save on postage overall far out weighs the odd loss. Remember, most people are honest and are glad to get there goods.

Re: Shipping with no tracking
 

I only used tracking with ony 1% of my shipments. I never had problems without tracking. I sent thousands of items with no problem.
Well, this was with my old account. The one with good standing...

Re: Shipping with no tracking
 

Tracking is HIGHLY ENFORCED, you will get an email saying amazon customers expect to be able to track their packages blah blah blah...

With that kind of volume you can expect to get suspended FAST especially around this time of year when everyone wants to know where their package is, plus without tracking you open yourself up to LOTS of other problems you don't want

Re: Shipping with no tracking
 

Gamefreak, I wasnt suspended for not using tracking. It was from another different reason.
As I said acording with my experience I didnt have problems.
For example, I know a high volume seller from uk that ships to usa and dont use tracking. And I didnt receive an email from Amazon saying that I must use tracking

Re: Shipping with no tracking
 

i think amazon.com is different and have different expectations for its sellers from other countries.

Usually international orders don't even count against anything anyways

Re: Shipping with no tracking
 

Ya but if you sell 500 items at $1.19 I am sure USPS will cut you some kind of deal. I even see these shipping companies I never heard of but they will give big discount for large quantity. Even something like smartpost is cheap but yes I know can be little slower.

Re: Shipping with no tracking
 

All about covering yourself from claims - if you figure that saving this will help profit balance without negative repercussions....your decision

Re: Shipping with no tracking
 

I understand the temptation to save the money here. It would be much cheaper to re-ship the few orders where the customers claim they never received them. Unfortunately, eBay and Amazon like tracking numbers. I always just look at it as a cost of doing business.

Re: Shipping with no tracking
 

In my case I did a calculation.
500 orders per month.
each tracking service costs around 3 dollars
3x500: 1500 dollars.
Lost orders per month acording my statistics: 1 or 2, or sometimes nothing.
they are low values goods, so as per my case it doesnt worth to pay that amount of money. If any claims I just refund or send a replacement.
lost shipments in my case are very rare... :p

Re: Shipping with no tracking
 

Gamefreak,

the bad part of doing international shipping from amazon is that many buyers think that they are buying from usa based sellers, some few of them got angry and left you neg feedback before the estimated delivery. even tracking wont work.
unfortunately amazon doesnt care about showing the item location to buyers just like ebay does. with ebay, no problemo :FF:

Re: Shipping with no tracking
 

You can generate a first class letter label using endicia and it will generate a tracking number. It's not searchable at USPS, but amazon will accept it

Re: Shipping with no tracking
 

Will Amazon be able to track it and see that it was delivered so that it will count against shipping on time metrics?

Re: Shipping with no tracking
 

What about Ebay, I have some new accounts I want to sell cheap items to build feedback

Re: Shipping with no tracking
 

Free shipping helps with this. If you charge...you could get dinged by customers who expect fast shipping with tracking for a shipping charge

Re: Shipping with no tracking
 

Yes, I would charge Free shipping. I notice a power seller specifically noted that it would ship First class Without a tracking number and that you could upgrade to standard shipping to receive tracking

I think I will do this, it makes sense to build up feedback

Re: Shipping with no tracking
 

I will chime in here.
I have 4 accounts I can compare, 2 of them are two years old and I have sold 1000+ items and never used tracking. The other 2 accounts I use tracking for 70% of my items. All 4 are going strong, tracking is not needed.