International Shipments

[chrisw957]

I use the small flat rate USPS box for shipping items, which is great because you can do it all online, and you get an easy delivery confirmation. I consider delivery confirmation to be a requirement considering how small the margins and how easy it can be for a customer to claim the item was never received and get their money back.

There doesn't seem to be any equivalent for international shipping (from the USA). The USPS has a flat rate international small box, which is reasonably priced, but they don't seem to offer delivery confirmation with it.

Looking up shipping prices via fedex or ups for every order seems like a waste of valuable time, and even then, you run the risk of the shipment getting hung up because of some unpaid import tax, etc. And there again, if the customer claims he doesn't receive it...

Does someone have a good solution?

thanks.

[pstemari]

The "delivery confirmation" from USPS basically just means that USPS has scanned the package out of their system. No guarantee that it went to the right address, etc. If you pay a bit more, you can get a actual signature for the package.

[george graves]

Just a side note. Out of about 1000 packages I've mailed in the last 2 years - I've only had 1 person claim they didn't receive it. I had used USPS with delivery conformation. So I set the gentleman a long email showing when he paid, when the item shipped, tracking number, screen shot from USPS, ect - the whole bit. His response? "Yea I didn't get it". So I still had to send him out another one. No skin off my nose really. 1 out of a 1000? That's fine with me.

Was he scamming me? I don't think so - maybe his neighbor took it by mistake. Maybe a gust of wind blew it away. Who knows.

I have heard one ebay'er say that it has happened to them a few times in the past - he/she said that when someone say that they didn't receive a package, they respond saying that "I have a delivery conformation, but if it really didn't arrive, that we'll will file a case with the USPS and that because it's a the federal government blah, blah, blah, could you please check again before I have to open up a case - maybe a family member got it by mistake?" The ebay'er said that people that are lying will respond with "Oh here it is!" and honest people will tell you it didn't arrive - and you just send them out another.

Maybe that will help someone.

[pstemari]

That sounds about right. I've certainly been on the both sides of a delivery gone astray, and I'm thankful for honest neighbors.

[stbtrax]

I've had USPS scan a package as delivered when they actually didn't. It showed up 3 weeks later, with a post office stamp for that day. So I applaud how you handled the situation ladyada, some would be quick to accuse the buyer of trying to get a free product based on the evidence.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Reliability and trackability will depend heavily on the postal service of the destination country. Countries regularly excluded by ebay sellers will give you an idea of those which may be problematic.

I know some USPS services to the UK can be tracked all the way, but you need to use the tracking service of the UK Post Office, who cross-reference the original USPS tracking number to their own - this may also be the case for other countries.
If you think about it, this makes more sense than the destination country having to send tracking data back to the originating country, although I suppose in principle it would be possible for USPS to know the destination country from the tracking no. once it has left them, and provide a direct referring link to the destination country's post office website.

[Alan Chatham]

Kinda going off what Ada has said, I've now shipped a dozen or two kits abroad - most of my volume tends to come from Scandinavia for whatever reason - but I haven't had issues with it. I imagine it's a bigger issue if you kit is large/expensive, but my stuff tends to be small enough that shipping is about $5 -10 internationally even. So I just don't worry about it - Nobody has told me they haven't gotten it yet, so it hasn't been a problem.

If you're shipping something significantly more expensive, I'm sure there are other precautions you can take, for more money, of course. I remember reading something over at Sparkfun about an order placed in their earliest days for like $5,000 worth of stuff supposedly going to Mozambique or somewhere similarly dubious, but that was pretty easy to catch that something fishy was going on. If you're sending something to India or China or somewhere with a similar level of government disarray, you might have to do some more research into possible ways to ship things, but the first world tends to have reasonably reliable postage.