hello..

I've decided to join in on the Auctiva Insurance. My question is I've added it to all my listings. Can someone check my listings to make sure I'm doing this correctly? Am I charging enough? I sell a lot of different priced items. It's pretty confusing trying to figure it all out.

Also, I just started selling high priced sunglasses, which is the best way to go with shipping..I'd love some suggestions..do people like USPS better than UPS? I was just selling buttons, but I'm starting to fade that out and get into much higher priced items. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thank you..

One thing you have to keep in mind is that Auctiva covers both the sale price AND shipping. So your designer sunglasses that start at $49.99 will actually be covered at the $50.01-$100 rate, which is currently $1.70 (that's what Auctiva will charge you). If you don't mind taking a small hit on the insurance, then you're OK. Otherwise, you need to change that. Most sellers would charge the buyer $2.20 for insurance in that price range.

Also, at the far bottom of your ad where it states the Shipping and Handling info, it says shipping insurance is "Not offered". When your customers check out, they will not have the option of adding insurance to their purchase. If you want your customers to be able to buy insurance during checkout, you need to fix that.

One other thing to note. You state in your listings:

quote:

I cannot be held responsible for an item if it disappears, breaks or if it gets damaged.

Be aware that, if a buyer complains about non-receipt, or damage, and has paid by PayPal, the buyer can get reimbursed whether they paid for insurance or not. I don't know how much of a fraud risk designer sunglasses are, but a savvy scammer can cheat you out of your money AND product fairly easily. It's a good idea to insure any package that you cannot afford pay for if it gets lost, or the buyer files against you - even if it's at your own expense.

Regarding shipping, I think USPS is fine for small light items such as what you're selling.

I'm still not getting this whole auctiva insurance thing. I have decided I'm going to go with USPS and I'm going to change all my auctions to priority shipping w/insurance through auctiva. NOW..how do I do that? I still just cannot for the life of me figure it out? What if I drive to the post office myself? How does that all work out? I print my labels at home. I'd like to just over auctiva insurance on all my more expensive auctions how does that work???

It's really quite simple, once you get the hang of it.

Just go to your "Transactions" tab in Auctiva, find the sold item that you want to insure, and click the "Add Insurance" link, and then confirm the purchase. That's it - the shipment is now insured. You don't have to put anything on the shipping label, or in the box. If you go to the PO to buy postage, there's nothing extra that you need to do.

If a package is lost or damaged, you simply fill out the required claim forms (available here on Auctiva's site, or at the U-PIC site), and file them with U-PIC (Auctiva's insurance provider).

If you only wish to offer insurance on your more expensive items, then just check the "Insurance Optional" box when you are creating a listing for that item in Auctiva (it's somewhere near the bottom of the page).

Hope that helps.

I should point out that, if you have Auctiva Checkout enabled, the whole insurance thing is done automatically via the Checkout process. You don't have to go into the Transactions page and manually do it. However, you still have to have "Insurance Optional" checked in your listings, and not "Insurance Not Offered".

Hope that doesn't confuse things...