How to ship expensive items (insurance, signature, etc)

[kirkland]

I usually sell cheapish stuff (20-50 max), but I do have one expensive-ise item I'm looking to sell. It's about $200. What's the best way to list and ship expensive items like these?

I plan on using Priority Mail which insures up to $50... should I buy additional insurance? (and how much would that be)

What's the whole deal I read about getting buyers to sign for expensive items... I mean, if the tracking shows that it was delivered, doesn't eBay side with the seller automatically making the signature redundant? How much does a signature cost anyway, and would this be specified somewhere in the listing settings for shipping?

Just looking for general advice! Thanks

[dallis]

You'll need to insure it up to the value + shipping cost including delivery confirmation, and yes, you should get signature confirmation to be sure the data is impossible to refute.

If you're sending USPS it's an option, you may find it easier to purchase these services at the counter.

This won't protect you against them sending back a brick, there was a thread about this recently, but it will allow you to confirm it arrived and the purchaser signed for it.

Sounds like there have been a lot of stolen accounts going on lately, with eventual chargebacks, don't know how you can protect yourself against that or the above scenario, though.

[vettefever17]

Originally Posted by dallis

You'll need to insure it up to the value + shipping cost including delivery confirmation, and yes, you should get signature confirmation to be sure the data is impossible to refute.

If you're sending USPS it's an option, you may find it easier to purchase these services at the counter.

This won't protect you against them sending back a brick, there was a thread about this recently, but it will allow you to confirm it arrived and the purchaser signed for it.

Sounds like there have been a lot of stolen accounts going on lately, with eventual chargebacks, don't know how you can protect yourself against that or the above scenario, though.

Follow this to a T. You will hardly ever win with regular tracking with eBay or a chargeback with Paypal. No matter how the tracking show it was delivered, they wont side with you. It mostly comes down to lazy reps. If you want the safest route, buy the signature. I believe it is 2 dollars and some odd cents. It is extremely hard for someone to deny signing or a company not wanting to give you seller protection.

As for your insurance, it is all up to how you want to deal with risk. Does it have a high profit margin or low margin? Do you want to deal with small risk of something being lost priority. It very rarely happens. It all comes to what the math shows you. Sometimes you can absorb a complete loss, other times you need to bake it into your pricing/profit margins.

[mcnol012]

You must get the signature confirmation

I have seen many sellers being scammed for not using it

[SaiJin]

Just to be clearer, paypal requires sellers to use the signature confirmation at a certain $ amount. Otherwise they will not cover you.

The insurance part, I never used, but if you can spare some change for it, I would.

[kirkland]

Cr*p, so I was in a rush yesterday. I took my package to the Post Office and purchased signature confirmation and insurance... but I don't have a tracking number. It was never given to me

I always use tracking, but for some reason I just figured they would give it to me at the post office anyway. They didn't.

Is this going to be a problem? If I dont have tracking but I do have signature confirmation tracking number, so it will show that the buyer at the final address will sign for it... it just won't show the tracking on the way there

Man I really hope this buyer isn't a dirtbag. Am I in trouble?

[dallis]

They gave it to you. It's printed on your receipt at the bottom.

If you lose the receipt I don't know how you would get it. You can go back and see if you can use the sig conf number to find it. They're probably tied together somehow.

Are you in trouble? Only time will tell.

Odds are you probably got lucky this time. Cross your fingers and pray if you're religious.

[SaiJin]

The signature confirmation should be the tracking actually.

So as long as you can show them it was signed for, you are covered.

[kirkland]

I'm hanging onto my receipt for dear life

I hope you guys are right! When I tried to put in the tracking on eBay, it throws me a semi error message "this is a signature tracking number, you need to provide tracking separately" or something like that. I guess we'll see

So I dont think they're necessarily tied together. But maybe they are

EDIT: never mind, you guys are right. When I type the tracking into USPS, theres actually a tracking history associated with it. Stupid ebay

[dallis]

You can't trust EB tracking. I've tried tracking it on EB and got nothing, then when I went to USPS it showed up just fine.

[SaiJin]

It won't be a problem unless the USPS side screws up.

The eBay side sometimes has lag, but it'll show.