I agree with all these posts, but being in the retail business my self and shipping constantly, when I ship to a customer and something goes wrong, its my shipment that i made that didn't show up to the customer. So I truly feel its my responsibility to make it right. I'm the one guaranteeing that my product will be delivered once they give me their money. If theres a mistake at usps its my responsibility to make it right since it's my product until its in the hands of the purchaser!! just my opinion, I know their covering their ...'s. But statements like these vendors make can make customers feel like its "ship at customers risk" and i totally understand how that can make potential customers weary....
Just another of my opinions, but I dont feel like my job is done once my product is delivered to the shipper. I feel like my job is done once my product is in the customer's hands and the customer is satisfied. If someone is shipping a product back to me that their unhappy with I dont feel like its my responsibility to fix the issue should the product not make it back to me, nor will i release their refund until i receive the returned item. So i think it goes both ways.
again this is just the way i do business.... i know theres dishonest people out there, but i believe the majority of people are honest, and actually i know that the majority of people are honest because i very rarely run into these issues with costumers and have been shipping with usps regularly for the past 15yrs.
I just had to chime in on this issue as a former internet seller. At one time I was shipping between 70 and 100 packages a week via USPS. Shipping that many packages, mistakes will happen and items will be lost. To make matters worse, these items were usually expensive watches, so they weren't easily replaced. I always went out of my way to make sure a customer was happy....
WITHIN REASON I place so much emphasis on
"WITHIN REASON" because there are many people who have been trained by the ridiculous "the customer's always right" mentality that will immediately expect a retailer to do anything and everything to make them happy, regardless of fault, circumstance, or policy.
A prime example of this was a customer I had who's son decided to open her package, take the watch out, and hit it repeatedly with a hammer. This customer reasoned since she had not been in possession of this watch before it was broken, I was at fault and should send her another watch.
Another excellent example was a man who gave me the wrong address for the shipment. He reasoned I should send him another watch because he never received the first one.
The last example I will use here is the customer who figured he should be entitled to a refund because his wife, who he was separated from, had collected the mail first and refused to give him his package.
I have literally hundreds of these examples where customers feel a company should sacrifice their hard-earned profits to satisfy them, even though the company has done everything correctly and the fault can be placed squarely on another entity. Customers know today's business models typically mean "the squeaky wheel gets the grease", so they cause as much disruption as they possibly can in order to get what they feel is owed to them, no matter how unreasonable.
A company saying they are not responsible for shipments once the item has been sent to the shipping company is simply a company who is trying not to be taken advantage of. They are not saying, "Once I have your money, you're screwed". They are simply saying, "I refuse to be a target for scammers and I hope my regular customers understand that".
Keep in mind. These companies are only trying to protect themselves and provide for their families. As customers, we have tremendous power to make or break a company and these retailers understand this. If we as consumers have been happy and satisfied with a companies products and service in the past, we should keep that satisfaction in the front of our minds while hearing about new policies we may not understand. In today's economical environment ditching a company for simply trying to protect its interests is very irresponsible of us as ditching said company could very well be the catalyst for that company going out of business.
Instead of ditching said company, might I recommend calling the owner of that company and asking him/her to clarify the reasons for the new policy or procedure you don't understand. You just might find yourself agreeing with said new policy once you understand the motivation behind it.
Of course, this is only my opinion.
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