Royal Mail failed delivery for Christmas to buyer

jon81uk

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

jon81uk said:

BellaBlondykeTheThird said:

Sadly it looks like you cheaped out on postage. We all learn these lessons 

If the item is under £20 there is no need to pay for more expensive postage. Proof of postage and the value of the item should be enough to get a refund from Royal Mail for private sellers. Other services are only really needed for items over £20, or if you really get a lot of claims you want to defend on eBay and even then the standard small parcel proof of delivery is enough to defend an eBay claim.

The problem at Christmas is once the day comes a lot of buyers will be looking for a refund, if Royal Mail then deliver before they pay out the claim you are a bit stuck. 

With managed payments it's not easy to get the buyer to repay, if the buyer returns the item you are out two lots of postage, a lot of buyers will ignore you which is frustrating and for those that don't you'll feel bad at the trouble you are putting them though over something of such small value. 

I know years ago with Recorded Delivery the answer was put a £ in a jar and at the end of the year you'd have more in the jar than you've given in refunds but with Tracked 48 being so little extra for the peak time of your it's a decent service.

The only downside for Tracked is Royal Mail doesn't appear to offer compensation for late post so you won't get a book of stamps if they take 2 weeks to deliver but fortunately that occurrence seems very rare.

Yes the previous advice given that tracked 48 is very competitively priced is much better. Its more the comment that they "cheaped out" I was responding to, when it is always necessry to use a more expensive option.
Whereas the advice that tracked 48 is only 10p more is a great tip and isn't really anything to do with being "cheap". The OP probably didn't know that option was available, so compared to options that can be bought in the Post Office they did the right thing generally in not spending more its not really "cheaped out".

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

jon81uk said:

Yes the previous advice given that tracked 48 is very competitively priced is much better. Its more the comment that they "cheaped out" I was responding to, when it is always necessry to use a more expensive option.
Whereas the advice that tracked 48 is only 10p more is a great tip and isn't really anything to do with being "cheap". The OP probably didn't know that option was available, so compared to options that can be bought in the Post Office they did the right thing generally in not spending more its not really "cheaped out".

Agree with that and the being cheap comment from the other poster wasn't perhaps wasn't phrased as best it could be  

I think eBay is party to blame, when you look at their label purchasing flow it's all text and very badly laid out making it hard to digest, when you look at the flow on the Royal Mail site it's a million times better. 

I know eBay offers other couriers too but that doesn't excuse their poor layout. 

Unless of course as you mention OP went to the PO where there's no Tracked available AFAIK. 

soolin

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

jon81uk said:

Yes the previous advice given that tracked 48 is very competitively priced is much better. Its more the comment that they "cheaped out" I was responding to, when it is always necessry to use a more expensive option.
Whereas the advice that tracked 48 is only 10p more is a great tip and isn't really anything to do with being "cheap". The OP probably didn't know that option was available, so compared to options that can be bought in the Post Office they did the right thing generally in not spending more its not really "cheaped out".

Agree with that and the being cheap comment from the other poster wasn't perhaps wasn't phrased as best it could be  

I think eBay is party to blame, when you look at their label purchasing flow it's all text and very badly laid out making it hard to digest, when you look at the flow on the Royal Mail site it's a million times better. 

I know eBay offers other couriers too but that doesn't excuse their poor layout. 

Unless of course as you mention OP went to the PO where there's no Tracked available AFAIK. 

I agree that the label options are presented very badly by eBay, not logical at all. My point about free collection being available on all services also shows the issue, how many people realise that RM will collect all RM items when labels are printed via eBay if you opt to add collection ?