e-store customer missing shippment?

hey everyone we ran into our first shippment problem. 1 customer claim that he has not recieved his order. He's from the US and we have shipped most of our product to US with no complains. How do fellow e-commercer deal with this? As in how would you know if the customer is telling the truth or not? Im not saying he's lying but there're lots of different kind of people in this world. If it's all true should we sent him the order again? We provide free shipping via regular air mail so there's no tracking.

as well this is part of our shipping policy, which is clearly written on the shipping info page
"However, we will not guarantee any damages or lost in the shipping process, unless you agree to buy the insurance. If you want so, remember to inform us when you place the order."

I dont want to reject the resent right away. Yet I hesitate on the idea of sending an order again without questioning. And if I dont resend it, he'll likely to ask for a refund what do I do then?

any suggestions please? This is quite urgent!

thanks

 

My advice is to increase your prices by a dollar or two and insure all of your packages. Even better, charge for shipping outside of your country and use a trackable service like UPS or FedEx.

Since you don't give details on the type of products you market, this may or may not be worth it if the items are low-ticket items. But if most orders are a good deal of money, then it is worth the extra expense.

How long ago was the order shipped? I would wait 2-3 weeks before shipping a replacement order. Customs are tight these days and shipments in or out of the US seem to take much longer now.

 

If it's a cheap item just send another one. If it's expensive, then you really need to be using a trackable service.

The real question is, how much do you want to spend to keep this guy from giving you bad feed back on various message boards? Remember your reputation is a valuable asset.

 

yes that is the biggest concern. O and i have to edit this particular item was shipped to Canada not US. I personally sent a package to a friend of mine about a week ago and just last night he told me he has recieved it. So I really wonder about what went wrong and if there is anything wrong with the shippment. Our selling point is to provide free shipping. Unless i recalculate everything and add few extra dollar for insurance Im not sure what else to do.

 

Do you have any evidence that you have sent the package, ie postal reciepts and all that ?

I am not sure about the postal services in the US or Canada but you might want to inquire about your post office if you can get them to launch an investigation of the package. It might have been stuck at customs or something.

 

I don't which is the biggest mistake of all! From now on ill have to ask for receipts.

 

It might not be a bad idea to scan the front of the envelope with the stamps, your address and their address on it. At least this should give you some proof that you actually packaged it. It might help the post office trace the package easier.

I find it useful to include the recipient contact number on the package too, so that if there is any issues, the post office can call them.

 

That sounds like a good idea too. I guess I have to try all those method to better protect myself. Guess I can only take this as a learning experience.

 

Shipped to Canada from US? And if it was airmail you have automatic insurance valued against the weight. If it was just a regular envelope, I don't know what kind of insurance.

In the end, you need to find the best way to protect yourself and give customers the best service (reliability) I have found over the last 8 years that usually the package turns up eventually and this includes shipping things to the UK via airmail.

 

Fortunately it was a typo by the customer. We check his address to see if there was a mistake and turns out the address that was sent via paypal was missing the unit code (which he entered himself). Therefore we are am not held responsible. Thank god! All we could do now is suggest him to check his post office.

 

Cool! Glad that worked out in your favor.

 

well we were expecting this. But the customer filed a dispute via Paypal. We have already told him that he had entered the wrong address himself and he checked 'confirm address' in Paypal. So what can we do now?

 

just comunicate - copy/paste everything to paypal and let them know the whole story.

 

Its his mistake and it is not your problem , he is the one liable for the address not you if he added the wrong address in his paypal , then paypal will just laught at him and tell him there is nothink thay can do.

 

I think he doesnt fully understand what we wrote to him. From his past emails we can say that his spelling and grammar isnt great. On our last email we even took a screen shot of the email we received from Paypal stated we have got the payment and his address was "Confirmed"

I have dealt with anything like this before with Paypal, are they going to step in? Or just let us communicate through this resolution page first?

 

wow just wow! Cant believe im gonna post again on this issue! Our customer demand us to send him another shippment of the order. right!!!