Posted by David Sherman on Wednesday, July 31, 2002 at 0:36AM :
In Reply to: problem with shipper not with shipping company posted by mike stone on Tuesday, July 30, 2002 at 6:47PM :
It's true it's the shipper's responsibility to pack it right, but frequently the buyer doesn't want to pay for proper packing. I've sold a fair number of things over the internet and I've yet to find anybody willing to pay me even a modest amount to crate something up or to buy new packaging materials for it or to have some place like Mailboxes Etc package it professionally. They want to pay whatever the exact UPS charge is and no more. For that price (i.e. zero for my time) I'll do my best to wrap it up in whatever used bubble-wrap, foam rubber, plastic peanuts, or other dunnage I have on hand and put it in the best used cardboard best box I have in my box pile, but it might well not survive a 5-foot drop. So far I've been lucky, but it's only luck.
I just sold something on ebay for $60, which is going to cost $50 to ship. The guy wants to make sure I pack it carefully (fine), but is he willing to pay for me to buy a new box and packing materials? No. For an extra 10% or so, he could have it packed better, but somehow buyers expect packaging to be free. For a while I was selling rebuilt NP203s for $90 (the local junkyard gets $150 for a used one), and I had inquiries from far away, but when I told people I'd have to charge them to crate it up and ship it, they weren't interested.