Pet peeve. Buyers, please don't....

[1iampolly]

Even if I hadn't been selling online for 27 years, I think I would still be insulted when a buyer sends a note to seller like these: "Please pack it securely in case of damages during shipping" or "Make sure you carefully package this"  or "Add extra peanuts & tissue paper with the package"  and my favorite, "Make sure this won't get damaged during shipping."  Don't buyers know how insulting this is to the seller?  Also, I've seen packages that look as if USPS drop-kicked them into a garbage truck & we certainly don't have control over how our packaged are handled.  I've tried to think of ways to respond to these comments, letting the buyer know I always package with care & that it's insulting telling a seller how to do his/her job.  And lastly, that I would have to ship in steel boxes in order to insure safe travels.  Thoughts?

[wrong66]

I was a contract driver and worked the docks at a Postal Service Processing Center for 10 years. If I told you the things that mail handlers do to parcels, you'd never use USPS again. Drop-kicking is common, believe it or not. Shipping tubes become baseball bats or hockey sticks. Smaller parcels become baseballs,  pucks and, of course, footballs.. Everything is fair game and postal mail handlers, on the most part, are not ravaged by over-intelligence. Dock supervisors are rarely seen.  Because of these experiences, and the fact I've got plenty of damaged items in the mail, I would never take comments from buyers like that personally. Just answer "always", as someone else already suggested.

[tenbigdogs]

Hi @1iampolly  I'm in a Facebook group where daily people post photos of their items that arrived broken to bits because of poor seller packaging.  They often say they asked about secure packing before buying and were reassured by the seller that it would be well packed.  Just because someone has an item in their possession and has it for sale, doesn't mean they have experience packing the item for the perils of transit.  Don't take it personally, take it professionally.  They like your items so much they want to receive them in as-described shape.  Good luck! 

ps, See the vintage American Tourister ad for how packages are often treated, intentionally or not. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5sEIWlQO7A

[eenus-56]

I'll admit I used to leave a note like that at checkout for certain items.

I used to regularly buy Super Nintendo video game consoles. The plastic on these is very fragile, yet so many sellers just drop them in a box with zero protection. Around 25% of consoles would arrive shattered. I eventually stopped leaving messages like that at checkout, since it didn't seem to make any difference. Even when I asked that the item be packaged safely for shipping, they'd still be shipped in a box without any bubble wrap or void fill and would often show up shattered. That's why I eventually stopped buying and selling them online altogether.

[Anonymous]

I once shipped a coffee mug to a buyer that was packaged to the hilt.......buyer received a pancaked box full of ceramic dust and chunks. He sent me pictures of the flattened box and had the nerve to message me about poor packaging, to which I replied that the box had been smashed or slammed hard in a truck door or something and no amount of packaging could withstand that.

He opened the box and found it to be double boxed, full of bubble wrap, extra re-enforcing cardboard, and popped air pillows.

I promptly sent him a full refund, he messaged me back with an apology for blaming ME so fast.