Optional Insurance Fee/Button Needed for Checkout

Thor

In addition to shipping, I think sellers need to also have a button on checkout offering insurance to buyers for an additional fee. If buyers opt for insurance, the predetermined cost for that insurance will be added to the total amount due on checkout.

Yes, I know sellers can include insurance in shipping. But I think it would be much better to separately offer and charge for insurance. By building insurance into shipping, you are forcing it upon a great many buyers who don't want or need it. As a buyer, I certainly don't want to always be forced to pay extra for insurance or higher shipping with built-in insurance on small $10 or $20 orders. In fact, as a buyer, I make it a point to avoid sellers who require insurance on orders below $50.

Ideally, I would like this feature to offer optional insurance to my buyers whereby buyers can choose their own level of coverage. For example, I use InsurePost and it costs me around $1.00 per $100.00 of coverage to insure domestic orders and $1.50 per $100.00 of coverage to insure international orders. If an international buyer places a $180 order in my shop and pays $40 for shipping, I would like my buyer to be able to choose from either $100, $200 or $220 worth of coverage. As a seller, I would also like this feature to allow me to offer insurance only to buyers in certain countries, and not all buyers. Currently, InsurePost only offers insurance on shipments to 30 or 40 countries.

Lastly, I would like to be able to add a note to buyers if they decline insurance. And PLEASE... let's not get into a long debate about the DSR, PayPal or responsibility for uninsured packages. For one thing, the DSR does not apply to US members or anyone else outside the EU. And PayPal is NOT free insurance. Anyone who thinks it is WILL be required to have all their packages fully insured and tracked.

Thor

Lawrence

I'll have to think about that one carefully, there are many different rules across the world. if I order from a UK store, if they ship it and it doesn't arrive, they have to refund it, regardless of if they offered insurance and I declined it.

We are trying to make Brick Owl more like "normal" websites which never mention insurance to the buyer. How would you feel if you chose yourself when to pay insurance, and when packages go missing you consider it a cost of doing business?

Sir Troys

I think that this is going to confuse buyers. When they order something, they expect it to arrive. They aren't going to understand why they must pay extra to guarantee delivery.

Troy

Thor

Tell that to the Post Office Troy. I pay postage to the post office to deliver my packages. Yet if I want them to guarantee the package actually gets delivered, I have to pay them extra for insurance.

I don't see how offering insurance will confuse buyers. Optional insurance is already commonly offered for a separate additional fee by so many companies (including the mighty US Post Office).

By requiring sellers to include insurance in their shipping charges, you are forcing ALL buyers to pay more shipping for something many if not most of them don't want or need. To give you an example, I have placed over 1200 orders on BL as a buyer and paid insurance on less than 10% of them (I only insure BIG orders). If I were forced to pay insurance on all 1200 of those orders, I would have easily paid at least $5,000.00 more for shipping over the years. Yet, out of those 1200 orders, only 2 were "lost", having a combined value of perhaps $100. Do the math... paying $5,000 extra to protect myself against the very rare $100 loss makes no sense at all. The ONLY ones who benefit from requiring insurance on all orders are the insurance companies, and sellers who "self-insure"(1).

As a compromise suggestion, how about giving sellers the OPTION to charge separately for mandatory insurance on orders over, let's say, $100? As long as it is up-front and shown to the buyer at checkout it should be OK, right? I just don't want to force insurance on all my buyers, especially those who place smaller orders. And I sure don't want to have to pay extra for it as a buyer if I don't need it.

Thor

(1) If I place a really big order and do want insurance as a buyer, I want it from a reputable insurance company with legally sufficient reserves and written policy and reimbursement guidelines. For these big orders, I do NOT want it quietly provided by an individual running a part-time LEGO business out of their basement or garage. In fact, if a seller insists on "self-insuring" I would like to know that upfront so I can reconsider whether or not to take the risk of dealing with them.

Lawrence

I forgot, there is a maximum order limit restriction on the shipping methods, so you can make the shipping method only available up to $100. You could then copy the shipping method, and increase the cost of all the bands. Then on expensive orders, that would be the only shipping method they could use.

Thor

It seems cumbersome to have so many different shipping methods. And confusing to buyers. Also, insurance costs are not the same for all insured orders, so a flat insurance fee per insured order is not really fair to all buyers.

For example, the cost to insure a $100 package to a buyer in the USA is only round one or two dollars. But the cost to insure a $1,000 order to Hong Kong is many times more.

Also keep in mind that order weight and shipping rates have no relation to order value and level of insurance coverage. Thus, a 225 gram (8 ounce) order consisting solely of rare Star Wars minifigures can easily exceed $500 in value but ship internationally for only $10. Whereas a 225 gram order of common 1x2 bricks will rarely exceed $20 in value.

The problem is that postage and shipping are based on packed weight, whereas insurance is based on the value of the contents. Ideally, it would be better to separate the two charges so that no one significantly overpays. In other words, allow sellers to set up and offer buyers optional insurance coverage that uses price bands, not weight bands. And only to those countries selected by the seller (since while shipping may be available to that country, insurance may not be).

Thor

YELLOW FARM BRICKS

keep to the principle of price = goods + shipping
if sellers want to charge extra for things like this of course they can but IMO it needs to be built into shipping prices (or goods even), which is what it is on most other marketplaces. Big turn-off for a buyer to find the seller wants him to pay to "insure" his inventory in addition to buying it.