Q&A: Should I charge extra postage when buyers give the wrong address?
QUESTION: I just have to vent about these people who order something without checking the address. I usually don't hear from them until a few weeks later.I think the fault lies with 1-Click on Amazon, because it doesn't give people a chance to confirm the shipping address. So many of them send the item to a previous address or a relative. I get several packages a week returned to me, and sometimes the customers are quite irate. Today I had a guy respond: "I don't know where you got that address." Like I'm just sitting here in my basement, making up false addresses to amuse myself (and lose money).
What is the proper policy on extra shipping charges? I'd like to ask the customers to reimburse me for the extra costs of re-shipping the book. But I'm risking bad feedback because they're already annoyed and seem to think the fault lies with me.
ANSWER: You're right, 1-Click checkout is the culprit. It's amazing how many people don't bother to check their address. With Media Mail, of course, the problems can snowball. Media packages aren't forwarded, even if the carrier has a new address on file -- so it can be four weeks or more before it's returned. And believe it or not, I've had several "undeliverable" packages that didn't turn up again for more than a year.
The frequency of this has declined a bit in the past year since Amazon inserted a 90-minute delay before orders are forwarded to sellers. So some of the buyers who read the order-confirmation e-mail they receive from Amazon have plenty of time to correct the address.
Whether to charge buyers for your extra postage costs is a delicate issue, especially when the customer is already irate. You've got to convince them that it's their fault -- without insulting their intelligence. During my first few years of selling, I demanded the extra postage money every time, and made a special zShops listing to collect it. But it probably wasn't worth the time and aggravation. Since zShops was phased out, I've been eating the extra postage costs and just chalking it up as a cost of doing business.
Another issue: As you may know, the Postal Service is supposed to charge you for each returned Media Mail package. In other words, if your package with $2 of postage is returned undeliverable, your mailman is supposed to collect $2 in postage due when the package comes back. Many carriers don't bother collecting it, but some do. And I know there are some sellers who insist on the buyer paying those postage-due fees too. In this case, buyers might end up paying for shipping three times -- to the incorrect address, back to the seller, and on to the correct address.
I have a standard response for buyers who accuse me of screwing up their address. I simply say, "If that's not the way you ordered it, then someone must have hacked into your Amazon account -- and therefore you should notify Amazon and your local police so they can investigate." I never hear another peep from them. This also works wonders with those buyers who insist "I never ordered this book!"
Labels: customer service, Postal Service
posted by Steve Weber at 10/02/2007
7 Comments:
Two factors none of us as sellers can change on Amazon.com: First, the Customer is always right and Amazon is 100% on the side of the Customer--a lesson I have learnt the hard way as a seller. The other unchanging fact is that Amazon.com belongs to Amazon.com and they set the rules and clearly state they have the right to change their own rules and also to be inconsistent in enforcing their own rules. That being said, I had a customer with an FPO address purchase a history book from me that weighed six pounds. I thought I had revised all my listings at the time of the new Postal changes that began in May--as in no more surface shipping. Well, it figures I would miss this one and yup, the worst case scenario occured. The shipping for this "overseas" item that could only be sent by Priorty Mail cost me $16.05 ($3.99 is only collected for FPO/APO addresses and for that I now state in my listings that I no longer ship to those addresses) and yup, it was returned back to me as Undeliverable--Attempted Not Known. The buyer did not include after the box number the designated alpha letter indicating which unit she lived at. It clearly appears the Postal Work at the FPO end did indeed know this person, but was a "by the book" worker and returned the book (I asked the Postmaster General to investigate the matter--I am a former elected politician and know whose feathers to ruffle). So, I informed the buyer what had happened, encouraging her to update her address with the alpha letter. Also, that I could either issue a full refund or mail the book to a U.S. address. A full refund was issued and I received a 5 rating from her nonetheless---lucky for me. The moral of the story? The Customer is always right and Amazon.com says about such matters, "You are responsible for this claim." The Customer is to receive the item at your expense even if it is 100% the Customers fault. It hurts to lose money, but this is a very rare occurance for me. Out of the last 90 days I have sold 235 items on Amazon.com and only two were returned to me as undeliverable/wrong address. The second one, I sent the customer an email but never heard back from them--this was back in early August and a follow-up email was resent a few weeks ago for the correct address. I believe the customer has 90 days or so to make a claim or contact me. If no response, then I will relist the book and keep the profits thus making up for most of my loss with the previous FPO loss. Depending on the cost of reshipping the book would determine if I would request additional payment to reship. The FPO address, no way would I reship at my expense, I would rather have the negative rating. The other customer, cost was $1.99 for a light weight book that I actually mailed by First Class Mail--I will reship at my expense. I have been selling online since 1999 and bad address returns are very rare. Perhaps less than one percent so this isn't a hard issue for me.
AZ should once per year also send emails to buyers to see what bounces back and hold or prevent orders [give pop-up message] until personal ID is updated.
Hotmail andother "free" email services are culprits. Since AZ also penalizes you for Refunds, when I discoved an unlisted defect; I emailed the person. There was an extra with the book not listed so I felt the defect and extra balanced each other.
I shipped the item and was eamiled asking for a return. They never saw the email. Hotmail doesn't forward email to you, you have to set up your software to receive it or read it online. Sellers at time have to communicate with buyers - free services are a hassle. [In addition to AZ blocking emails as oter services don't do.]
For me, returned packages are rare. This year I've only had three. First one hurt, an Amazon sale, Priority requested. The book was very heavy, and I ended up mailing it with the flat rate box (at $8.65), after about a week, the cusomer emailed asking where his package is. I remailed the shipping info, the website had no info at all. About 10 days later, the website the package was being returned as undeliverable. It took several emails to acertain that the buyer had not provided a suite number OR a business name for a huge office building in LA. Geezz...customer of course wanted a refund. Which I gave, and I STILL have the book.
Another one, customer had not updated the address for his nephew, so it went to an old adress. He provided me with the new address, and was glad to pay not only the $2.31 for the extra postage, but paid me $3 and apoogized.
Last month, I received an email within a few hours of a sale on Amazon, that I was shipping to the wrong address (via shipping email). Sometimes that fast shipping can bite you back. I doublechecked my seller account, and I had used the address that was provided. I contacted customer again, and he fixed the problem on his end. Again, this was a priority item. Apparently, he had wanted the book sent to his business address, not residence (saftey issue) because some carriers were just tossing his books over the fence. Luckily, within a couple of days he got the book in fine order, and asked me about my ebay store, and put me on his favorite seller list. So there you go!
I guess I can't complain. I'd play it by ear whether to eat the extra cost. On eBay, I have thousands of positive f/bs. A negative is not going to hurt much. But on Amazon, I only have hundreds, and a negative could have serious consequences.
I sure wish they'd come up with a system which is fair to both buyers and sellers.
I usually eat the cost and move on. Spending time emailing etc over paying an extra 3 dollars is a waste of time.
I agree with Barry. It's a waste of time to email or re-ship. Eat the cost and move on. My customers get one chance to get their address right. If their book gets returned, I refund the price of the book, less the shipping. Feedback be damned, I won't set that precedent. Why are you guys shipping 5 pound books overseas? You know you HAVE the choice of NOT checking those two little boxes, right? If it doesn't fit into a flat rate envelope, don't ship it overseas.
amazon specifically told a gathering of large sellers that orders are only held for 30 minutes for books, longer for other orders. these very large sellers were upset about the delay because they sell on multiple sites and didnt realize that their inventory was 30 minutes out of date...
and in reply to katherine, up until this week, amazon's new generation selling platform, Seller Central, had no web based way to specify expedited or intl shipping. i was told you had to send a data feed to update those fields
We wait the full two business days before shipping in case people e-mail us address corrections. It happens at least once a month, so between those and the people who cancel orders a day or two after placing them, it seems like we have to do it. It stinks because I'd rather ship books out fast, but it saves us money and hassle.
We used to re-ship when books came back undeliverable but no longer. Back when a large percentage of our books shipped for $1.59 or less, we could afford to do it because we had a little profit margin on shipping. With the new rates, the shipping allowance barely covers the cost of the typical book plus supplies. Now when a book comes back undeliverable, we refund it minus the shipping. We get the occasional complaint, but there's not much we can do.
Before we instituted this, we called Amazon. Their response was that we aren't responsible for refunding postage on returned packages. So Amazon is behind us.
Some people might argue that we should think about the trouble-free books we ship out per year and not let 50 orders hurt the experience for the others (literally thousands), but the monetary cost is significant (over $100) and the cost in time even more so. There've been times we've wasted an hour dealing with an undeliverable book. I think getting some of that time back so we can do things like scout more, or list a few books off that pile of unlisted books that accumulates next to the computer has really helped our business this year.
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