Previously the discussion was about how to handle shipping while protecting both you and the buyer to your customers when it came to online pruchases with paypal, 2checkout.com and/or any other merchant account that accepts credit cards on the internet.

Now since one of the most popular payment methods online is through paypal.com (now with over 100,000 websites using the service without counting the all eBay buyers who use the payment merchant to process their payments), it’s of priority that you add insurance to packages that to YOU are considered of high financial value, have a limitation/scarcity print when it comes to quantity units available or that are plainly irreplaceable.

When it comes to the most popular shipping method on the USA, (USPS), insurance isn’t covered in any average shipping option with the exception of “Express Mail” packages.

What does that mean with paypal.com, 2checkout.com or the most popular merchant accounts accepting credit cards on the internet when a product is NOT covered with insurance and got lost once in the hand of the postal office, in transit or buyer request insurance as product arrived damaged? YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE for your buyers insurance claim. We ship the product, therefore, we as sellers make the claim for insurance reimbursement on behalf of the buyer.

The buyer doesn’t know how much the product cost you (or at least isn’t supposed to know), therefore, since we have receipts of the product(s) purchased either from the manufacturer,supplier, distributor or wholesaler, if you’ve covered the item in question with insurance you submit the claim with receipt of the actual cost of the merchandise in question to the post office agent. If the item cost you $35.50, you should purchase coverage for $35.50 ONLY and not exceed insurance coverage as USPS will only provide you insurance reimbursement for the cost of the product once proper proof of purchase/receipt to USPS agent has been provided.

What does paypal.com do on both Paypal Business account and Premier account? In a nutshell, if you can’t provide at least tracking information you as the seller will be with a lost when it comes to tangible merchandise shipped offline (digital downloads like music, software, eBooks are not covered when it comes to outside of eBay) so insurance is mostly to protect you the seller as Paypal is most likely to provide a reimbursement to the buyer and either leave you with low funds or your account or with a negative amount in your paypal.com account.

What can you do to prevent this? I’ve done two things since my first case back in 2004. Just like you should have an emergency fund for at least 6 month for expenses in your home, have a seperate emergency fund in your paypal.com account or any other merchant account that process your payment. It could easily be done by cutting out a small percentage of payments arriving to your account. Two, consider having insurance on all products that are shipped both domestically in the US or internationally.

When it comes to insurance, I will add insruace to items over $100.00 or more or if they are the last one in stock. Reason why, it doesn’t cost me anything as you and I can add it in the shipping expense to the customer(while still charging a low/reasonable shipping fee) AND because when it comes to shipping with USPS.com I’ve only have only one package lost with “Parcel Post” and only one with “Priority Mail” out of 1,000’s of items shipped in the last 4 years. Delivery success rate is around 99% with USPS so the chances of lost packages or damage in transit when it comes to responsible packaging is very minimum. If the item are CDs, games or products of low monetary value, I will personally disregard insurance. It’s of course up to you when it comes to your income protection with shipped items.

As always your comments and thoughts are welcome.

Happy savings in your Black Friday,

John R.

Back to business. How can you get your e-commerce shop, website or even blog index in the search engines fast? The most obvious choices for most Internet markets being, going to Google, Yahoo and MSN for getting their sites index as Google has an average by month of 65% of the search market, Yahoo leading second with an average of 20% and MSN on a third position with around 7%.

One of the steps I never consider is getting all of my websites index in other search engines others than the top 3. Now, here is a good point to think about and consider. If the top 3 search engines make around 90% on average of the search queries on the worldwide web? Who are the next popular search engines on the Internet after Google, Yahoo and MSN?

While many of these search engines and directories are affiliated of the main three companies above, you should consider submitting your website to these next blog as it is easier to get index in this sites and to acquire easy linkage authority and therefore rank higher in the short term with them and consequentially as you grow in the most popular 3 of Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Check; dmoz.org, alltheweb.com, ask.com, looksmart.com and gigablast.com .

These search engines, combined with many of there directory power hold enough of the 10% gap that Google, Yahoo and MSN don’t hold. Truth always holds truth, if your website is mostly informative and provide consistent updated content and submit your mini mall and your blog extension with good amount of content - you should get in.

Last work in progress was MSN, re-submitting 32 websites (and manually) for approval as they recently changed and updated their ranking algorithms heavily. After tweaking sites with added content, 18 sites re-appeared in their index pages and thousands of pages are now index from all my network of websites.

Different algorithms, different approval process. They all want the same thing: “quality”

For more traffic on all of us,
John R.

Passing through eBay I still see people going after schemes, after schemes, after schemes. Scams are growing bigger by the day not only on eBay, but on numerous websites online and auction sites runned by the good guys - respectable brands.

For many of you that may not know, auctions sites, especially eBay have a running tour d’France running by the hour from people listing auctions in the wrong places. Situation being for eBay fraud prevention department being, they have massive amounts of sellers with the intent to selling supposed wholesale distributor list, but listing as for example, in the handbag, purse sub-categories. Not only do the sellers get massive traffic, they get people’s clueless purchase. They send them an email with a list of 1,000 distributors of random merchandise sources and leave the buyer at “AW!”

“What is this, I din’t purchase this” “I Purchase a Louis Vutton $2,495.00 purse for $10.00 with free shipping!” That was a friend of mine running through eBay’s addicted bargains. Of course, with my help paypal easily gave my friend her money back and not only did she get her money back, the seller has a big “user is no longer registered” in the feedback area of eBay feedback portfolio.

Coming from a nice vacation a few days back, this is the call I get 5 approximate seconds before sitting my precious and starting to work. This message for you means “prevention!”

By now you may be probably equipped with a B.S detector to easily spot the scammers on auction sites and on multiple online websites. Avoid the temptation if you are not sure of what you are purchasing and make sure to read every single detail described in every offering online. Be it on eBay or respected website, it should be schooling basics 101…but still people want the “too good to be true” discounts on Louis Vutton, Prada, Channel and the likes in the high priced ticket items on in-demand products.

This type of behavior will keep happening. Sites like eBay and other auction sites have already integrated softwares to pull red flags in their database for fast immediate re-verification of the product/auction in question. So if you are buying a wholesale distributor list, make sure not to fill your email inbox with 10 gigabytes of yellow pages fully exposed retail distributors and make sure to carefully review the fine prints if you fell in love with a handbag.

Catch you guys shortly,

John R.