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Do You Require Delivery Confirmation and/or Insurance When Dealing Online?

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Do You Require Delivery Confirmation and/or Insurance When Dealing Online?
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showmethepins

Gotta Find Mickey Pins!
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Hi Everyone,

I've read some of the posts about transactions that have gone poorly online because one of the parties involved never received their pin. I know delivery confirmation and/or insurance can be expensive, but do any of you request upfront that the other party use such services when buying, trading or selling online? Does anyone have a rough idea how much it costs to ship 1 pin in a bubble-mailer with delivery confirmation within the continental US?

I plan to start trading a lot in a few weeks and want to get your thoughts on this before I start. I would like to make delivery confirmation mandatory, but if the cost is excessive I'm afraid I'll have less people willing to trade. Your thoughts are appreciated...
 
Hi Jared
I always do..I cannot remember if I put that on your pkg I sent though
I sent 20 the other day..I have to have it as its a piece of mind for me.
I have had pkgs stolen and lost,so I do ask for it in a trades and sales if they offer too
 
Thanks for the response Judy, and I can't wait to receive the package! Do you have a rough idea for the cost to mail 1 average size pin in a bubble mailer with delivery confirmation?
 
Depends on how you do it. I use Paypal's Multi Package Shipping options, and I can create labels for people that never sent me monies, etc, for things like pin trades. If I was to go to my local USPS directly to do a first class label w/ DC sticker, it would roughly be 2.50 for one pin (pending on where I ship). Doing it via Paypal knocks about $.75 off of that since doing it online gives you DC for $.15 instead of $.90 at USPS

Yes, I always use it whenever possible, whether it is a pin or a Transformer, but I do not ask anyone mailing to me to "You have to have it". It is their call, but as others have said, it is the shipper's responsibility to make sure it is there or if not, make it right
 
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Thanks for the feedback. I didn't know the substantial difference in price for delivery confirmation when using PayPal, that's VERY helpful.
 
I only use Delivery Confirmation when 1) people ask for it 2) The pin(s) is worth over $20 3)When I want them to use DC on the pin they are sending me. It only costs me about $.40 or so.

Usually for 1-1 trades, I don't use it.
 
Unfortunately, as already been discussed, tracking only shows the pin was delivered somewhere in the zip code. It does not tell you what address nor who retrieved the mail. That being said, I use various levels of tracking. For medium to high value trades I definitely insist on delivery confirmation. This is also true if my spider sense tingles. (I typically do not do insurance since collecting on the claim is very hard as you have to prove the value of the item; simply pointing to an eBay auction is usually not good enough). With really valuable pins, I have even sent my pins with return receipts which shows who signed for it and on what date. However, for a easy pin (such as a lanyard), then no. It’s simply not worth it; if the person claims they didn’t receive the pin or it was damage, I'll return their pin. I believe it is the responsibility of the person whom is sending the pin to insure its safe delivery. And plus, karma and community are just not worth five dollar piece of metal.

Over ten years of trading / buying pins (consisting on many purchases / traders) on the Internet I have only had a handful of bad experiences. Once, a person claimed my pin was damaged and when I received it back, I it looked fine to me (Ironically, it was not even a trade but a thank you). I only recall receiving one pin damaged by the mail. I contacted the trader immediately and the trader accepted damaged pin back, sending me a new one from her collection. As for missing pins, I have only had handful of people claim a pin was sent to me and I never received it. Most sent me a different / new pin; however, a couple have accused me of lying and refused to return my pin / money. (None of the cases involved a pin that really valuable; one was even button!) Oh well. I believe karma returned the favor.

We are a really small community and if someone looses a lot pins, sends a lot of pins, etc, it would filter through the community qucikly enough.
 
Excellent comments, thank you! I plan on trading heavily in the coming months (with everyone's support of course!) so I wanted to figure this out ahead of time. If anyone else has anything to add please feel free. Thanks again.
 
i almost always use DC when mailing packages, mostly to prevent being scammed, as it happened to me on ebay about 7-8 years ago, and with DC i have proof of delivery. (I sent the item via priority mail, didnt get DC for whatever stupid reason I had at the time, and the person claimed to have never gotten it -- had to refund the money and i was out ~$500 on an R/C car + race-tuned nitro engine)
 
plus, using paypal multi order shipping or shipping assistant, DC is only .19 on First class packages as opposed to .80 at the post office.

I have an account with endicia, and a label printer :cool: so I can also track all my packages via my portal on endicia, too
 
I try to trade with people I know so delivery is not an issue. If they say it did not get there, I believe them. If I am trading with someone for the first time or they have less than 25 references, I typically use it. Again, it is more of a tool to really know that the person even sent it, and then there is the issues of it being delivered to the wrong address. The postman scans it as delivered no matter where he delivers it.
 
I always use D/C as I got scammed on Ebay once. The guy admitted he got the pin I sold him in an email to me but it was not enough for PayPal and they returned his money to him. They told me to use D/C or mail through them. We use PayPal and Endica to mail and ALWAYS use D/C. If the trade is of great value we insure but that is for us to reclaim the loss if there is one.
 
showmethepins said:
Great suggestions, thank you! I'm not familiar with Endica so I'll do a little research...
Click to expand...
it's like stamps.com with a monthly charge.

with endicia, you can print first class postage for free though (you have to pay for the postage obviously) -- and you need the label printer too.

if you have a label printer it might be worth it; if not, paypal multi order shipping is free, and that's probably the way to go.
 
Basically, to each their own. In other words I do not ask it, but I do it. I am responsible for my pin getting to someone. If I do not do something to help Guarantee (I use the term loosely) it makes it, then shame on me, and I will take the loss.

I do not ask anyone else, because it is up to them what they feel the value of the loss will be, replacing the pins i never received, returning my pins I sent for trade, or working out some kind of monetary agreement.

I really encourage everyone to insure or deliver confirm. It seems like the USPS works harder to deliver those than packages without anything on them.

Just my two cents worth, but really probably worth 1/2 a cent if that! lol
 
@Cicada -- Thanks for the info, that's helpful. I'll check PayPal first since I don't have a label printer.
@huertajv -- Thanks for the feedback, it's nice to see that you take responsibility for your pins arriving safely!
 
I use delivery confirmation all the time, especially when dealing with people I have not dealt with in the past.
 
for me in Ireland then I dont use tracking as its expensive for 1 pin and when your sending more than one out at a time it can get quite high, and now with the budget here I definatley wont be putting tracking on any for a while, I know I should use tracking but I guess its down to what you can actually afford.
 
Took my last mailer to USPS office, bubble wrap pin, bubble wrap 6 x 9 envelope, no stamps on yet. First class with delivery confirmation was a total of $2.20. Spent about $30 at Staples for bulk shipping supplies, hoping they last 6-12 months.
 
I do not have a label printer. We use our regular printer to print out labels and it works just fine. We buy the sticker paper done in half sheets off of EBay in bulk, that is the least expensive.
 
flaneur said:
Took my last mailer to USPS office, bubble wrap pin, bubble wrap 6 x 9 envelope, no stamps on yet. First class with delivery confirmation was a total of $2.20. Spent about $30 at Staples for bulk shipping supplies, hoping they last 6-12 months.
Click to expand...

reuse the shipping supplies. every trader just about sends pins out in bubble mailers and with bubble wrap as well. i suggest reusing these items to save on shipping supplies. shoul last a lifetime of trading :)
except for tape and stamps
 
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