[meteorite-list] Lost packages and other selling thoughts

From: David Freeman <dfreeman_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Feb 14 20:16:32 2005
Message-ID: <42114D69.8090804_at_fascination.com>

Dear List, John, Rob;

I sell on ebay as you all know. I require insurance and delivery
confirmation on all of my auctions. In the past, I have had three
jokers try to get something for nothing and that is why the required
delivery confirmation, and the postal system has lost and destroyed a
half dozen shipments/ heavy boxes of rocks and thus the insurance. I
have found that the el-cheap-o bidders that do not want insurance and
delivery confirmation can go to the cut throat sellers and that is fine.
The time spent trying to make a bidder that wants something for nothing
happy is never made up for anyway.

Another issue is the payment method. I only take paypal these days as
the money order and check only wastes time and time is money.

 Great buyers have paypal and great buyers do like insurance and
delivery confirmation. 38% of my ebay business is from repeat customers.
Repeat customers get special treatment and free stuff (and free shipping
for the free stuff!).
That time saved by only selling to the better level customers is applied
to ferret out better quality and more interesting items for my great
customers.
Another tip: sell things to those that have more money than you
do....(of course that leaves a great deal of lee-way in my case).
Best,
Dave F.
mjwy on ebay!
100% positive feed back and over 800 auctions completed.

JKGwilliam wrote:

> I guess what it all boils down to is you have to decide if you're a
> business man whose goal is to make a profit (and develop happy
> customers in the process), or if you're goal is to turn over
> merchandise whether or not you make a profit. If you decide to be a
> businessman, you should take the proper steps to protect yourself
> financially by requiring insurance and tracking on every package you
> ship. If a customer elects to not pay for insurance, he can purchase
> his goods somewhere else or give you a statement in writing that he
> won't hold you liable for items lost during shipping. In the case of
> the latter, you will probably loose the customer anyway because any
> customer that looses money is an unhappy customer.
>
> There's one dealer I'm aware of that offers FREE shipping if you buy a
> certain $$ amount of specimens from him. He must be crazy, right?
> Yeah, crazy like a fox.
>
> Why are so many people willing to risk the loss to save a few bucks on
> insurance? Trackable shipping and insurance just make good business
> sense.
>
> Best,
>
> John Gwilliam
>
> At 10:35 PM 2/13/2005, Rob Wesel wrote:
>
>> I run into this a fair amount as well and it is a tough decision, the
>> cost of a customer versus the cost of the lost parcel.
>> I believe it is not on you to refund the loss but it may be worth
>> doing in the long run.
>> My largest loss was $750.00 and I refunded it and still lost the
>> customer.
>
>
>
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Received on Mon 14 Feb 2005 08:16:25 PM PST