Wallets going missing

[EBMP]

Hello all,
I've been selling on eBay for about a year now and have always used RM for inland deliveries. Up until 3 months ago, I never had a single loss or damaged item and I was really happy with the service received by Royal Mail. However 3 months ago I started selling men's wallets, and there seems to be a very high loss rate with these - about 2% so far. Sorry for being so cynical, but I'm guessing this is because they look like they may have money inside and are being opened up by RM staff. Is it really so easy for someone to do this? Are there camera monitoring systems in sorting offices, or does this generally happen when out on delivery? I used to have the same issues with greetings cards being opened and money being removed - then the card was delivered without the cash!

[baldrick]

There are cctv cameras in mail (sorting) centres, but it wouldn't be too difficult to slip something as small as a wallet into a pocket if someone wanted to.
You need to get the 'missing item' form from a Post Office and submit it so that it will be investigated.

[NewPostieUK]

How would anyone know it was a wallet?

I very much doubt you'd get Royal Mail employees fondling and shaking packets to find a wallet, then assuming it had money in it and opening it.

[Sidley]

How are these wallets wrapped? It may pay you to change the wrapping if you think the packaging you use makes them look irresistible to thieves.

2 out of a hundred? Just sounds like bad luck to me rather than theft.
If they're being sent all over the country you'd have to have the worst luck for your goods to end up in two dishonest peoples hands or plain bad luck if it is undelivered due to incomplete/illegible address, torn wrapping, unseen 'sorry you were out ' card, dishonest customer or a myriad of other reasons besides theft.

It may just be a blip, these things loom large when things have gone without incident previously, you may not have another cluster of missing deliveries ever again and then our batting average will be nearer the 100% mark if you catch my drift?

[EBMP]

The wrapping is quite minimal, and it does say "WALLET" in small print at the bottom of the label - might need to reprogram the label software to change that!

2 out of 100 might not sound too bad. But it's actually 23 out of 1000 that have gone missing. Before starting with these wallets, I've had 100% delivery (or return) of about 3000 items, over 9 months. It just doesn't sit right.

But as you say, it might not necessarily be a postie's fault. By starting a new product line I'm exposing myself to a different clientèle to before.

I'll change the packaging and the label and submit a loss form.

Thanks for the input :)

[IcanthelpthewayIam]

The wrapping is quite minimal, and it does say "WALLET" in small print at the bottom of the label - might need to reprogram the label software to change that!

2 out of 100 might not sound too bad. But it's actually 23 out of 1000 that have gone missing. Before starting with these wallets, I've had 100% delivery (or return) of about 3000 items, over 9 months. It just doesn't sit right.

But as you say, it might not necessarily be a postie's fault. By starting a new product line I'm exposing myself to a different clientèle to before.

I'll change the packaging and the label and submit a loss form.

Thanks for the input :)

Question for you, do the recipients generally ask for a refund or a replacement?

[EBMP]

Replacements, except a couple of them who say they bought elsewhere while they were waiting.

[dvbuk55]

Oddly enough your apparent loss coincides with the number of "unreceived" packages - perhaps there is a correlation there. It may pay you to use RMs Tracked system which isn't that expensive.

[EBMP]

Unfortunately using a Tracked service will price me out of the competition. It's pretty fierce and every penny counts.
Having thought about it I do think that many of the customers must be "trying it on" to get their money back, but I do still think that a small portion of them are really going missing.
Anyway, I've gotten some good advice from posting here, so thanks a lot :)

[dvbuk55]

Unfortunately using a Tracked service will price me out of the competition. It's pretty fierce and every penny counts.
Having thought about it I do think that many of the customers must be "trying it on" to get their money back, but I do still think that a small portion of them are really going missing.
Anyway, I've gotten some good advice from posting here, so thanks a lot :)

Price of course is important so you would need to weigh losses against postage and how that compares.

[EBMP]

I know this is dragging up an old thread, but just in case anyone has a similar issue with items like this - I started wrapping the wallets in a polythene wrap before putting them in the envelope. (So that there's no chance of mistaking it for a used wallet).. All of a sudden, there were no more losses any more. I don't really understand how this helped, because you can't really see through the external envelope without opening it first. But it worked anyway..

[TrueBlueTerrier]

I know this is dragging up an old thread, but just in case anyone has a similar issue with items like this - I started wrapping the wallets in a polythene wrap before putting them in the envelope. (So that there's no chance of mistaking it for a used wallet).. All of a sudden, there were no more losses any more. I don't really understand how this helped, because you can't really see through the external envelope without opening it first. But it worked anyway..

This is just a theory, but the polythene wrap probably protects it more as it goes through the machine. If you wrap them tightly there is probably less play in the wallet and therefore the machines are less likely to catch it and damage the envelope. If the envelope and wallet get separated its difficult to then deliver it without an address.

Might be worth including your business car inside each wallet, not only a good selling chance, but also if the envelope is damaged at least they will have a return address to send it back to.

[EBMP]

I like that idea... thanks! I will start doing that.