Shipping Without Delivery Confirmation?

[thelabelpalace]

Hi Guys,

i I just wanted your input and feedback on your experiences with this. I sell customized address labels, and after fees my gross profit is only 3.00. What is killing me right now is the 2.61 in shipping with delivery confirmation through printing my labels via eBay. If I ship just through normal stamps without confirmation, I can slash that cost in half and make a much more reasonable profit.

What am I afraid of though is people scamming me saying that did not get their package. For people that don’t ship without confirmation, what is your experience? Is this a good idea? Any suggestions welcomed. Thank you so much!

[chipper01work]

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@thelabelpalace wrote:

Hi Guys,

i I just wanted your input and feedback on your experiences with this. I sell customized address labels, and after fees my gross profit is only 3.00. What is killing me right now is the 2.61 in shipping with delivery confirmation through printing my labels via eBay. If I ship just through normal stamps without confirmation, I can slash that cost in half and make a much more reasonable profit.

What am I afraid of though is people scamming me saying that did not get their package. For people that don’t ship without confirmation, what is your experience? Is this a good idea? Any suggestions welcomed. Thank you so much!

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Why not just try it for a week or two and see how it goes? Limit your risk to a certain dollar amount. Switch you listings to reflect the new approach and change them back after x amount of sales and see what the results are after the dust settles.

[coolections]

List them $4 free sipping. Send them in regular envelope with a stamp. Put 50 cents in a jar for every one you sell. There are very few scammers out there for what you are selling so even if you happen to run into one every 20 transactions or so, you would have already insured yourself $10 enough for 3 scammers. I have sold several cheap items with a stamp only and have never been scammed.

[odditiesandantiquities1]

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@thelabelpalace wrote:

Hi Guys,

i I just wanted your input and feedback on your experiences with this. I sell customized address labels, and after fees my gross profit is only 3.00. What is killing me right now is the 2.61 in shipping with delivery confirmation through printing my labels via eBay. If I ship just through normal stamps without confirmation, I can slash that cost in half and make a much more reasonable profit.

What am I afraid of though is people scamming me saying that did not get their package. For people that don’t ship without confirmation, what is your experience? Is this a good idea? Any suggestions welcomed. Thank you so much!

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Hello there. I was wondering about the cost of your labels. If it is low, I would drop the confirmation.  Keeps you in a good position with other sellers of similar things and ups your profit.

[atikovi]

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@coolections wrote:

List them $4 free sipping. 

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Actually $3.99 if you believe all the marketing hype.

[muttlymob]

I have mailed thousands of postcards, photos, historical paper items out without tracking over the past 15 years.  Offhand can only remember 3 claims of not received - there may have been more but not many. 

False not received claims are likely category dependent.  You may or may not be in a danger category.  Since your monetary loss would be small if you start to get not received complaints why not do as others have suggested and try it for a while.  If it works then stick with it.  If it results in INR complaints then rethink it.

[thelabelpalace]

Thank you guys SO much! I never knew how helpful these discussion boards would be! I will be using them much more often now. Thank you all so much again, each and every reply has been beyond helpful. A lot of times why I have them priced low, is many people buy multiple quantities in terms of labels. For example, last week someone bought 10 sheets, which is about 20 dollars in sales, and my additonal cost for multiple quantities doesn’t go up much. In other words, If I sell one sheet, I don’t make much, but if I sell multiple, that’s where the true profit starts coming in. Based off what everyone has said, I think I’m going to try stamps for lower valued sales and see what happens for a few weeks and go from there. From your experiences, it sounds like I will hopefully be ok and if not at low risk. I don’t think labels is at high risk for scamming. And like many have you have said, confirmation wasn’t always  so mainstream years ago. I like the jar idea! Thank you guys again!

[couldabeenworse]

I sell customized address labels, and after fees my gross profit is only 3.00. What is killing me right now is the 2.61 in shipping with delivery confirmation through printing my labels via eBay.

I need help with the math.  If you're selling the labels for $1.80 plus $1.99 shipping and spending $2.61 just on postage, where are you even making one dollar, much less $3?

[thelabelpalace]

You’re correct, I’m not making a dollar profit when I sell just one sheet, what I was saying I think earlier was if I switch from just stamps for those low value one sheet orders instead of delivery confirmation, then I will make about 1.30 in profit for those low value orders. If I sell more than one sheet, my additional cost per sheet is so low that’s where’s I make my real profit. But I just don’t want to keep taking hirs selling single sheet orders.

[thelabelpalace]

Sorry, I didn’t mean gross profit, what I meant was what my profit was before shipping. So my gross profit excluding the shipping was around 3.00. 

[couldabeenworse]

Sorry, I didn’t mean gross profit, what I meant was what my profit was before shipping. So my gross profit excluding the shipping was around 3.00. 

So, you are currently making 39 cents per order.  If you sell 100 this year, that's $39.00.

If you used stamps instead of trackable postage and managed to keep the total price+shipping the same, you'd make about $2 per order, or $200 for every 100 you sell.

You would have to get a LOT of INR refunds to negate that $161 difference - something near 40% of your buyers would have to request refunds.

If you decide to do stamps, you should change the shipping section in the listing; first class parcel would no longer apply and would lead buyers to expect - and deserve - tracking.  Adding the First Class Parcel as an option is a great idea.

[thelabelpalace]

Correct, those would be my margins on just single sheet sales. If I sell more than one sheet in a single order, my costs don’t change much when quantity goes up, so in those cases I can use tracking and keep a reasonable profit. It’s just the single sheet orders that kill me. So you’re saying, I should remove first class parcel tracking, but keep it as a shipping option for them to choose if buyers want it and they can more for it? That’s a great idea actually!

[nowthatsjustducky]

Do a bit of a risk assessment and a little test.

First, is this a category that is rife with problems, especially nondelivery claims?  If not, then chances are, switching to letter rates on your shipping should not be any cause for concern, because buyers have been known to lose their MBG privileges for filing too many complaints; and odds are good they are not going to risk their future protection just to get free stuff by filing on under $2 items when there is no tracking just because they can.  And likewise, if an opportunistic buyer is going to try to steal from you, it won't matter if there is tracking or not.  They will find a way.

As for the test, set half your items to letter postage and see if you get any excessive complaints about nondelivery (or any complaints) for a 6 to 12 month period.  If there are none, or if there are only a very few compared to the volume you do, then you can declare it safe to ship without tracking anything that can go at a letter rate.

[southern*sweet*tea]

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@muttlymob wrote:

I have mailed thousands of postcards, photos, historical paper items out without tracking over the past 15 years.  Offhand can only remember 3 claims of not received - there may have been more but not many. 

False not received claims are likely category dependent.  You may or may not be in a danger category.  Since your monetary loss would be small if you start to get not received complaints why not do as others have suggested and try it for a while.  If it works then stick with it.  If it results in INR complaints then rethink it.

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^^THIS^^

I have a second account where I sell small booklets. Everything is "free" ship in the $3-$5 range.  My ship cost is a postage stamp, with an occasional need for a second ounce stamp, and an envelope (1000 for less than $30) .  I also have a Paypal micropayments account that I use for those listings. I have no inventory costs because those items cost me nothing to acquire.

I've never in the four years I've had that account had an INR. Recipe booklets just aren't scam material.  Some people think it's not worth the effort, but it's easy work to stick a piece of paper in an envelope and mail it off, and I clear anywhere from $400 to 600/mo after fees and expenses and it's virtually risk free.  If it were to become a problem, I'd just group in lots and sell w/tracking.  No problems with tracking upload because I'm not a TRS on that account, and tracking is not required.

You have to weigh the risk vs. the reward. For me it's worth it. That account brings in a lot more money than this one.

[thelabelpalace]

Thank you so much Southern Tea!

That actually made my day, haha. It is very easy work, and I actually used to be able to clear 400-600 a month as well. I just quit doing it and am getting back into the game again, so am trying to build a customer base up again. But you nailed it right on the head, the cost is so low, and the work is so easy, why not do it just to clear a little cash? I'm going to go for it with stamps. Thank you all for all your help! Wish me luck!

[ted_200]

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@thelabelpalace wrote:

Hi Guys,

i I just wanted your input and feedback on your experiences with this. I sell customized address labels, and after fees my gross profit is only 3.00. What is killing me right now is the 2.61 in shipping with delivery confirmation through printing my labels via eBay. If I ship just through normal stamps without confirmation, I can slash that cost in half and make a much more reasonable profit.

What am I afraid of though is people scamming me saying that did not get their package. For people that don’t ship without confirmation, what is your experience? Is this a good idea? Any suggestions welcomed. Thank you so much!

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My experience with this is very good. 

For custom address labels, they're utterly useless for anyone but who is on the label, so they have a re-sale value of zero.   I would anticipate you'd have less than 1 in 100 INR claims. 

With a mailer and printer ink, cost on tracking for you is closer to $3.00.  I'm not sure how big these are, or what they weigh, but you can probably send them in a 3¢ envelope for less than $1. 

Even if you just save $1 per item, that's $100 on 100 items, if you lose one... or even two... that sounds like a much better plan.  There are plenty of scammer buyers on eBay, but they aren't likely to be scamming cheap address labels...