Securing your mail

Malnaborg

Hi everyone.

I send my Lego bricks to the whole world, and even though people almost never mark the order as received, i tend to go by that people get the Lego sometime.

So sadly when a buyer do write that they still have not gotten the Lego after almost 2 month, i believe them.
But for the most part, it is without tracking, hence i have no way of knowing what has happened with the mail, and feel bad to tell my buyer that.

So for suggestions, what do you brickowlers as shop owners do to be sure your mail is not lost in the process?
For context i am from Denmark and in January sold Lego to Brasil, that has yet to arrive.

tons_of_bricks

Well, in this instance, I'd politely tell the buyer to be patient and wait a little longer. It is not uncommon for overseas orders to take months to arrive at their destinations.

nita_rae

By not having tracking, that tells me that the customer wanted the cheapest possible shipping (which is usually the slowest). You get what you pay for.

Calibrick

Agree with the above... if it's going by container ship, I know of an order for a friend that took three months from UK to here in the US. So they're not paying for the fastest method. :-) I suggest noting in the title of the shipping option something like "METHOD NAME - Can take months, tracking N/A" or something. ??

Bricks-Shop

We have the same from Germany - Overseas can take weeks / months until they arrive. Another issue is very often that the parcels do not fit into the mail box. The post service person take it back to a Service Center for pick-up - but they forget to leave a note in the mail box. We have luckily found a lot of shipments in the Service Centers.
@Malnaborg: maybe you can ask your buyer to check this.

It's always a big question of with or w/o tracking. In Germany / EU a business seller is responsible for the shipment to an end-customer (B2C). The Tracking is only protecting the seller to get potentially the money back from the Post Service Provider if they do not find the tracked parcel. Anyhow in Germany with DHL/Deutsche Post there's a limit of 20€ we will get refund for a lost international "Goods Post". And there are only 40 countries out of 270 countries which are covered. The whole price will be covered if it was shipped as a package - shipping fee 5 times or more higher.
Offering High Shipping fee with less financial risk for us -> less orders.
Offering Cheap Shipping fee with some financial risk for us -> more orders.
This is always the trial to get a good balance between cheap shipping fee for customers and financial risk for us.

Regards,
Oliver.

Malnaborg

Thanks all for your answers.
The order was in the start if January, so i am a bit surprised that it has not arrived yet. Even with the cheapest shipping.

Apart from this, i have had more buyers to ask for the tracking code, even though they have bought without. And with this i simply just have no method of tracking "normal" mail / letter orders.
But the buyer is nice enough and would wait a little longer.

So i am glad i am not the only one with this :-)