Chapter Nine. How to Ship Your Orders

Once the orders begin coming, it is important that they be filled and shipped with­out delay. A good policy is to get the order on the way to the customer within 24 to 48 hours. Delay in shipping brings complaints, cancellations, and in the case of C.O.D.'s, a rise in the refusal rate. Some refusals are unavoidable, and in calculating original costs, this was considered; how­ever, an unreasonable delay in shipping doubles or triples the refusal rate. A promotion that is marginal or that pro­duces only a modest profit can easily be wiped out by too many refusals.

The loss of a customer is only part of the penalty for tardy shipments. For C.O.D. orders, the mailer advances the postage and C.O.D. fees which the customer pays for when accepting the package. When the package is refused, however, the mailer loses these advanced fees and must still pay for the return of the package.

Prepaid Orders

The customer, who was good enough to send his re­mittance with the order, generally does not refuse the par­cel, but may cancel if the delay is too long, or even if he accepts the order, the loss of good will may make him a one-timer rather than a repeat customer. He still has the option to return the merchandise for a full refund. The curt note, "I am returning the order. It came too late. Please refund," is quite familiar to mail order people. The obvious moral is: get your order out quickly.

The Mechanics of Shipping the Order

The cheapest method of shipping most small parcels is through the U.S. Post Office. If the item is large or heavy (post office has size and weight restrictions) it may be neces­sary to use Railway Express, motor truck, or steamer. Take your wrapped parcel to the post office and ascertain that it is mailable as wrapped. Compare mailing costs with those of Railway Express and then decide. Sometimes the difference is very small, and the fact that Railway Express picks up, may determine your choice.

Here we will concern ourselves only with third class and parcel post shipping, as it is probably the medium most of the readers of the book will use. No specific rates will be discussed because the periodic changes would quickly date the information. At present, most mailing packages fall into three groups and each will be discussed separately.

4th Class Matter (over 8 ounces). This classification covers parcels of over 8 ounces. Rates are determined by weight and destination, or in post office language, by zone—the farther the destination, the higher the charge. The post office from which you will ship has a zone chart which gives rates for the whole country.

From a zoning point of view, the ideal location for a mail order business would be somewhere in the middle of the United States. If the volume is large, substantial savings would be made with Illinois as the point of origin rather than New York or California.

Merchandise shipped under this classification requires the following indicia imprinted on a sealed parcel: Con­tents: Merchandise. Postmaster: This parcel may be opened for postal inspection if necessary. If you want the parcel re­turned when not delivered after a certain number of days, it is necessary also to imprint the following: // not delivered in ... days please return to sender. Return postage guar­anteed.

3rd Class Matter for Parcels 8 Ounces or Under. This is a wonderful classification for mailers selling items weigh­ing 8 ounces or less when completely wrapped for ship­ping. Under present rules, only the weight determines the amount of postage, not the destination. The 3rd class rates have been very low and the likelihood is that, compara­tively speaking, they will remain so in the foreseeable fu­ture. No tedious zoning is required and it is the easiest mailing method available. Mailers who find that their par­cels are slightly over 8 ounces can save considerable money and work by changing the packaging. Sometimes a change from box wrapping to paper or envelope will be enough to bring the package down to the 8 ounce maximum require­ment. Packages shipped under this classification require the following imprint: Contents: 3rd class matter. Postmaster: This parcel may be opened for postal inspection if neces­sary. If not delivered in ... days, please return to sender. Return postage guaranteed.

Book Rate. This classification covers books as defined by the post office. Because of the ever-changing postal regu­lations, it is important that you take the publication to your postmaster and have him determine whether it is a book, printed matter or parcel post (regular 4th class mat­ter). Assuming that your publication is a book by post office standards, then the postal rates will be determined by the weight only and not by destination  (similar to 3rd class).

Parcels containing books require the following indicia (usually placed below the return address): Contents: Book, Postmaster: This parcel may be opened for postal inspec­tion if necessary. If not delivered in . . . days please return to sender. Return postage guaranteed.

Shipping Prepaid Orders

Preparing parcels for the post office where full remit­tance was received with the order is extremely simple. If the parcel is tied with string (not sealed) merely write the customer's name in a prominent place and your own in the left hand upper corner, bring it to the post office for weigh­ing, attach the proper postage, and the package is on its way.

If the parcel is sealed, it will be necessary to have a printed label with the indicia shown above. Such stock labels may be purchased in any stationery store and all that is required is to fill in the shipper's and the customer's name.

The practice of most mail order firms is not to insure prepaid orders unless they are very expensive. The post office has a pretty good record for deliveries and insurance saved on the delivered packages more than pays for the very rare lost one. Of course, in case of a lost package, it is necessary to fill the customer's order again. Usually this is done after the customer has signed an official post office tracer (that either he or you made out) stating that the parcel was not received.

Shipping C.O.D. Orders

The post office supplies free all the forms you will need to ship C.O.D. orders. Your first step is to take a trip to your local post office and have a series of C.O.D. numbers assigned for your own use. In the beginning, the series will probably be small, but as your volume increases, more numbers may be obtained upon request. Repeat the series over and over again as it is used up. A C.O.D. parcel must contain the following information on the package proper:

Your name and address
Customer's name and address
The amount due sender (you)
The money order fee (the charge made by the post office for filling out the customer's money order)
The C.O.D. fee

This same information is repeated on a C.O.D. card (supplied by the post office) which is tied or pasted to the package. All the C.O.D. parcels of the same shipment have to be recorded on a C.O.D. manifold (also supplied by the post office) in duplicate. The post office will check off your shipments on the manifold and return one copy, receipted, for your record.

As the business prospers, you will want streamlined C.O.D. systems to speed your shipping room work. The post office has sanctioned pre-printed labels which may be typed in quadruplicate, and serve both as labels and mani­folds. These forms must be obtained from commercial printers. A specimen of a time-saving pre-printed C.O.D. form is given below:

Special Packaging and Marking

Playing safe pays off in packaging. Before making any extensive purchases, take a sample-wrapped order to your post office for approval. This is especially important in ship­ping fragile merchandise. Remember, too, that certain mer­chandise is better received in a plain, unmarked wrapper. Your customer may be shy about having ordered a snuff box and does not want the fact advertised on the outside wrapper. A little thought, and the issue of plain or marked wrapper should not be too difficult to decide.

In about three to fifteen days, depending on the destination, you should begin getting back from the post office the money collected in your behalf. These payments are in the form of money orders made out to your favor and may be cashed at the post office or deposited in your bank like any check. Before cashing or depositing the money orders, it is well to stamp on the C.O.D. manifold form the date that you received payment for each particular shipment.

About thirty days after shipping, a check should be made of the manifold sheet to ascertain that you received a money order or a returned package for every item listed on the sheet. Tracers (form 1510) should be sent out after "open" items. As C.O.D.'s are automatically insured, the post office will reimburse you for the face value of any package that it lost or for any money, collected for you, which you did not receive.

Waiving Tracers

Many mail order firms are not aware that the post office, in exchange for waiving the right to make tracers for lost C.O.D. parcels, will allow them to mail C.O.D. par­cels without the necessity of submitting C.O.D. manifolds. The convenience to the mailer is not evident at first sight, but in practice very substantial savings can be realized if it is possible to waive tracers.

Here is what this meant, in dollars and cents, to a mailer who averaged about 1,000 C.O.D. parcels a week. Upon becoming aware of this post office ruling, inventory was taken of the number of tracers sent out for supposedly lost parcels or unrecovered money orders. It was found that about 1,000 tracers were filed annually but in only 43 cases did the post office reimburse the company; the balance of 957 tracers was accounted for either as premature tracers (packages actually delivered or crossed in the mails), errors in recording returned money orders or parcels, and parcels that would have shown up eventually in any case.

The total received back from the post office was $150, but by waiving the tracer right, the firm found it could dis­pense with two manifold forms (the original and dupli­cate) at $6 per M set. This meant an annual saving of $300 just on forms. Abandoning the work of keeping these rec­ords, the extra shipping routine, and the futile labor ex­pended on tracers, also resulted in a saving in wages of about $1,500, or a total annual saving of $1,800, less the $150 lost because of the waiver, leaving a net of $1,650. (The waiver did not include those cases where the post office had already collected the money from the customer but had not sent it on to the firm.)

To put this practice into effect, a short letter on firm stationery, addressed to the postmaster, stating the willing­ness to waive the tracer right in exchange for the post of­fice's waiving the manifold rule, usually gets action within a week. (Final approval in each case comes from Washington.)

There are some disadvantages to this system that will become apparent when the business grows and detail is a problem; but then the shipper will better be able to evalu­ate the merits and demerits of C.O.D. manifolds.

Refunds

To establish reliability, send out refund checks   (or money orders) promptly. Delay will bring complaints from customers and investigation from the governmental agen­cies. Do not be too technical—your offer may have provided for 10-day examination, but the customer took 30 days. It is natural to wish to punish the abuse and refuse a refund, but we don't think the swarm of letters and investigation are worth it. In the end, someone (perhaps the post office inspector) will suggest that as a favor to him, you make the refund. Do not send cash (currency) unless insured.

Exchanges

The same rule of promptness applies to exchanges. If the exchange cannot be made, a refund should be given.

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