Horror in the Inside of a UPS truck
My wife is a top notch eBayer. She approaches it as a business venture and spends a lot of time on her laptop making sure her customers are happy with the products they buy. For anyone who thinks it’s easy to run an online store, think again.
The research that goes into finding the products that people want at a price they are willing to pay for it, is mind boggling.
The art of describing the item in the truest honesty of appearance with all dimensions and qualities, is the first step in the listing process followed by a clear picture(s) and the knowledge of key words to attract people to your store amongst thousands of other offerings is many hours of studying and experimenting.
Once the item is listed and the questions come rolling in, you need to answer them, immediately and clarifying. It’s like having someone in your store. Answering a question a day later, does not do it. She checks her listings a dozen times a day (or more) for questions – on her laptop and iTouch.
Yes her item turnover is high, she mostly sells out her weekly listings.
She’s been at it for over 4 years and fully deserves her top seller rating of 100% customer satisfaction. But it comes at a price.
Over the years she has been experiencing the downside of the business to be the shipping part or more accurately the handling part; the handling of the shipments by UPS and the Post Office. She spends a lot of time and money to pack the merchandise to perfection. Something you learn quickly to do with utmost care, since broken or damaged merchandise renders the whole selling process obsolete; a costly waste of time and money. Buyers claim broken items and the whole process of communication and refunds takes place without any financial reimbursement. From purchasing the item to time and eBay fees spent on the listing, to sales commissions to eBay and final sales percentages paid to Paypal; it’s all time and money wasted.
That’s why our garage is filled with cardboard shipping boxes, bags of styrofoam peanuts, rolls of bubble wrap and foam sheets to protect the merchandise during shipping.
Experience has taught her to ship with insurance just in case UPS or USPS still manage to damage or break the over-the-top packaged items. And yet it happens a more and more lately and it sometimes is very discouraging.
The worst part however is that she buys insurance and NEVER gets reimbursed when USPS or UPS breaks the item during their part of the transaction.
Their stereo-typical approach I experienced recently when I shipped a box of merchandise via UPS to Miami; a one day delivery. The box was UPS approved and the packing was done with care. I took out insurance for $400. The box apparently arrived in Miami damaged and without prior notice, they simply discarded of the product and the box and sent me a note of that fact a couple of days later, adding that the insurance was not reimbursing because it was packed improperly. No pictures to prove, just a note. A similar situation happened several weeks ago with a $900 piece of equipment.
My wife has spent thousands of dollars in insurance over the years with the Post Office, yet she has never seen an insurance payment.
And that is where people trying to build an Internet business get discouraged.
Buying off the internet is technically perfected these days, it’s the delivery process that needs attention and care. And there needs to be an Internet Insurance option that does not walk away from every claim without proof or explanation.
Without that, selling merchandise over the Internet will stay problematic for the small business entrepreneur. Check out some more pictures here.
By the way, my wife was a driver for Fedex for 8 years. Not any better she says.
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