Insurance

Plastic-Paradise

Is there a reason or has it just not been suggested yet that there is no way to offer/implement insurance on certain orders? On the other site I required insurance for orders over a certain value and orders to certain countries. Our hands are already tied with the inability to warn others when we get taken advantage of. Is there a way to implement this so we do not have lose money on certain packages? I don't see where it would be an issue as long as it was posted and agreed to prior to placing an order. My only other option is to not ship to the problem countries. That seems kind of prehistoric with the other options available such as insurance.

PP

Darkstone

You can add another shipping method which includes insurance, starting at a minimum value and set the maximum order value for shipment without insurance to your favourite value.

You can also specify shipping methods to chosen countries which includes insurance as standard. Everything is possible here ;-)

It's a little bit work to create all these different shipping methods, but It may be helpful

Lawrence

The way I would recommend implementing this is to have separate shipping methods for "danger" countries that include the cost of insurance. This will be less hassle when I make the bulk change stuff for shipping methods.

Plastic-Paradise

I will look into it. Thanks guys. I wasn't aware it is already possible.

Loremonger

@Plastic-Paradise Which countries would you be requiring insurance for? I have been covering the cost for insurance since it's more for my protection, but I haven't had any really big international orders, but I can imagine that those insurance costs might really get up there.

Enoch

Plastic-Paradise

@Loremonger I use Endicia for all international shipping so the insurance is quite affordable. I don't require insurance unless the order is more than 20.00 USD. As that is what I consider to be an acceptable loss. The 2 main countries I have issues with is Germany and Italy. I could block the countries but it isn't normally the customers fault it is the Postal carriers fault.

PP

Lawrence

In my experience, Italy is the only common country we have had postal issues with, we ship everything tracked to there. Other than that, there are fraud countries, but that's not likely to be an issue on lower value orders.

Thor

On BL, I received 260 orders from Germany and 41 orders from Italy. I have also placed 106 orders with German sellers and 3 orders with Italian sellers. And I never had any of those orders lost, misplaced, significantly delayed, mishandled or scammed.

Thor

Plastic-Paradise

Well congratulations. I am very happy for you. However, Those 2 are my problem countries. As well as Russia. But Orders to Russia have been very few which are a reason my problem percentage there is so high.

I certainly don't mean to sound sarcastic Foster but what works for one store doesn't necessarily carry over to the next store. My biggest problem with lost packages is the USPS. They are horrible. I lose more within my own country every year than anywhere else.

The problem with international orders is there isn't always a delivery confirmation. When they open these premature cases, the sellers lose them, and they will, insurance is the only way to get my money back for the sale. And I have never once had a buyer email me after the fact and resend payment because their package arrived.

If you take out a few UK buyers on BL that was running a PayPal non receipt scam for a while, Germany, Russia, and Italy are my problem countries. Every issue is with lost mail. Not scammers.

You should feel quite privileged to have shipped that many orders to Italy without any loss. I don't have any factual numbers of loss on hand to these countries but I assure you they are my problem areas when a Non-Receipt case is opened outside the US.

Thor

Thank you. I aim to please. There are plenty of other sellers who will also tell you they shipped to these countries with no problems at all. So perhaps the problem is not these countries but with the shipper or manner of shipment? Are you addressing the packages and filling out the customs forms correctly? Do you write "LEGO" or "plastic" on the customs form? I suggest you don't do the latter. It is enough to just say "toy parts". A big box of "LEGO" can be tempting for some. Less so "toy parts". It is the same principle as shipping a watch. There's no need to advertise on the box that it is a Rolex. Just saying... Considering the problem-free experiences of many others, you might want to examine if there is something happening on your side causing these problems. Or it could be you just had a run of bad luck and happened to find more bad eggs than usual. The good news is that I hear the USPS is now offering tracking to both Germany and Italy. So I wouldn't write off these countries just yet.

Thor

BTW, some customs inspectors in Italy seem to think (incorrectly) that you can't ship plastic toys to Italy. I never ran into that problem myself. But others have. I think one reason I never had a problem is because I never wrote "plastic" on the customs forms. There is no need to. And "toy PARTS" is not the same as "toys". Just like "automotive parts" are not the same as "automobile".

Plastic-Paradise

@Thor I do approximately 4500 transactions a year across multiple venues. Roughly 25-30% of them are international. It is definitely not me. I don't mean to sound arrogant but I know what I am doing as far as shipping and receiving goes. My customs forms read as "used plastic building toys" which have never been an issue at all anywhere. The problems generally arise when you as you stated use LEGO in the description or when you put NEW with a high value in the description. I always put the exact dollar amount on the forms as well. That is another reason why I like to insure orders over a certain dollar amount to certain countries. The higher the value the more tempting it is.

Also, just to be clear I do insure many packages out of my own pocket. If I think the order warrants it and the cost is justified and easy to absorb. I just want the option to be able to ad insurance.

What about the customers who ask for it? Should we say sorry, if you would have asked me prior to placing your order I could have spent hours building a new shipping profile just for you will free shipping built in? It isn't feasible. It is much easier to add the option for both sellers sake and the buyers. It certainly shouldn't be to hard to do. I use Endicia so mine would be quite simple as far as costs go as long as there was a way to implements them.

If I understand @Admin (Lawrence) reasoning correctly for not allowing things such as handling fees, insurance, etc... it is so the customer knows the price up front. Isn't getting a bit redundant to have to figure out how to add in insurance, plus packaging costs, etc... When I could advertise my exact cost's right on my terms page and it could be listed on the order page?

My ideas were for example, on the create shipping profile page add a couple sections with these options or something similar,

1) For insurance, allow insurance yes or no? then set up a small option as when your putting in your weights/shipping prices to put in the costs for US and for International. For example, US between 0 and 100.00 is 1.00 and International between 0 and 100.00 is 1.40.

2) Handling fees, Allow an option on either your setting page or each shipping profile set up to add in a handling fee. I would even be okay with it being capped. It would just be nice to charge exact shipping with a reasonable listed handling fee and move on. Instead we are having to calculate for what packaging we may or may not use, calculate for rather we may or may nor use insurance etc...

We just want options...

PP

Hoddie

It always confuses me when sellers suggest insurance is for the buyer's protection. It's not really. As a seller, especially if you're legit (meaning registered with the authorities), the responsibility to ensure the order arrives lays with the seller, not the buyer. The only exception would be if the buyer arranges their own courier, in which case the seller would be responsible only for handing it to them. Given all this, insurance is definitely a protection for the seller and not the buyer.

There are broad consumer protection laws in the EU. They allow buyers to send packages back, sometimes at the seller's expense, even if the only reason is that they've changed their mind. The same laws state that a refund must be given if packages never arrive. Obviously this would be hard to enforce against a US seller but certainly those doing EU to EU deals need to be careful. Most businesses either factor the losses into their margins or otherwise pay for on-going insurance to cover packages that go missing.

The bottom line is why would any buyer pay extra for insurance that only covers the seller?

I think PP has it spot on.

DagsBricks

I think the point of BO was to not deal with the handling fees and make it easy for a customer to see what they're spending in one fell stroke. Now I understand you are asking to add that in the backend so the customer never has to deal with it. In that case I believe the solution already exists to just add 50c or 75c to each of your shipping bands. I think averaging your costs would be okay instead of saying, "Well for this order I used 6 small baggies, 8 large baggies and a 6x9 bubble mailer so their charge would be..." Sounds like a lot of minutiae to deal with.

Or you could do like other sellers do and just figure it's the cost of doing business and include the overall expense in your prices.

Wait, this is sounding like a BL debate... *sigh* sorry.

Brian

Plastic-Paradise

My point is as a buyer I would much rather be charged exact shipping plus a 1.00 handling fee (that I was aware of up front and it was posted in my invoice as such) and insurance if applicable. Then get an invoice with some huge shipping cost because the seller is having to add in packaging costs, insurance costs, packaging weight etc... in an already non US friendly shipping set up. If the options were there in the shipping set up it would be much easier. That's all I am asking.

I understand insurance for example is to protect the seller predominantly but I do get plenty of requests for insurance by the buyer. Why not allow the option?

@DagsBricks I am a legal business so in my book when figuring the costs the IRS doesn't have a spot in my tax forms to write in or off "the cost of doing business. Each and every expense must be calculated and losing money on each order trying to calculate everything adds up over a years time. I also don't like guessing. That may be my minor OCD kicking in but I like things to be exact. I could easily calculate everything for a 3 oz. box but than I have to spend time everyday cross referencing every order and refunding a few ounces of shipping when I use bubble mailers. It also inflates the cost for the buyer and will likely scare some away unnecessarily.

I understand keeping everything simple and upfront for the buyers but at some point the sellers have to be considered here as well. After all this isn't eBay right?

PP

Lawrence

After all this isn't eBay right?

There's no need for that.

Plastic-Paradise

I am just making a simple comparison. No harm meant. I am not sure why you would take any.

Thor

Insurance is NOT a handling fee. I can understand the OP wanting to have a separate insurance fee for some orders, in addition to the postage. That is how I do it - manually - on BL.

But this is not BL. So here, I just add the cost of insurance into the heavier weights for certain shipping bands. It is not exact, and I really don't like having some buyers subsidize the costs for others. But, like it or not, this is the system we have here on BO. So I just make do with what we have. Sometimes it is better than what I am used to on BL. Sometimes it is not. C'est la vie. Shikatta ga nai.

Thor

DagsBricks

I see your point, PP. Aren't you suggesting just adding $1 to each shipping band?

Insurance as an option in Checkout would be a great idea.

I'm not big enough to be a business yet but I do keep track in a spreadsheet. When I buy a set to part out I write that in as an expense. When I buy bubble mailers I write that in as an expense. When I receive an order I write that in as income. I don't go so far as to track costs on each order to see if I'm losing money per order. I figure I will make less to none on small value large lot orders but more than make up for it in minifig and high value low lot orders. When I get big enough to file taxes I would assume I'd use the cash accounting method and not inventory.

It also helps to know that I get my baggies for 1c each and my bubble mailers for 12c each.

Brian

Hoddie

Surely "when I buy a set to part out" makes you a business. Anyone who buys to sell is trading. Maybe it works differently in the US?

Plastic-Paradise

@DagsBricks my idea for the insurance is to add a separate band within the band itself. It would be just like the shipping band when you are setting up your costs and weights for shipping but it would be for insurance options to buyers. For example the band would be based on dollar amount instead of weights. See my image below. I am sorry if it looks silly I am not much of a photo editor. There would then be another box with a question of something like "Make insurance mandatory" Yes or NO and/or "Require insurance over this dollar amount" Most of these options are already there in one shape or the other for other purposes. It would be nice to use something similar for this.

As far as the handling fee, that should be quite easy. I would think you would just add an option in the settings somewhere for do you charge a handling fee, Yes or No and a second part to the question for how much.

PP

johnsma2000

I have had customers request insurance be added to the order, but have not known how to add it. If the customer requests it be added, there should be a way to fulfill their request. So they can select when it is added to their order in addition to the shipping charges. (As a separate choice) before they pay within checkout.
Melissa

Lawrence

They way to achieve optional insurance/tracking etc is with two shipping methods. You create the normal method, then duplicate it and update the prices accordingly. You can set a maximum price limit on the normal method so the insurance method is the only option for higher value orders.

As before, once there is bulk price changing, it will be easier.

DagsBricks

Surely "when I buy a set to part out" makes you a business. Anyone who buys to sell is trading. Maybe it works differently in the US?

I spoke with a tax guy about this. I buy sets, take the pieces I need, and sell the rest. Once I said the word 'hobby' he said just make sure you don't show any appreciable income. Selling pieces funds my ability to buy other pieces that I can't break out of sets.

Plastic-Paradise

They way to achieve optional insurance/tracking etc is with two shipping methods. You create the normal method, then duplicate it and update the prices accordingly. You can set a maximum price limit on the normal method so the insurance method is the only option for higher value orders.

As before, once there is bulk price changing, it will be easier.

Thanks this makes better sense. I understand better now how to do it.

PP

Plastic-Paradise

Is there a way to duplicate another stores shipping methods?

Also, if there is, are there any stores that would be willing to provide examples as to how they did it?

PP

Hoddie

Surely "when I buy a set to part out" makes you a business. Anyone who buys to sell is trading. Maybe it works differently in the US?

I spoke with a tax guy about this. I buy sets, take the pieces I need, and sell the rest. Once I said the word 'hobby' he said just make sure you don't show any appreciable income. Selling pieces funds my ability to buy other pieces that I can't break out of sets.

Ah yeah that's pretty much what I do. I just read more into your other post than was probably intended.