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How are you handling shipping addresses?

         

JunJunJun

12:24 pm on Jul 27, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Hello. I run a gift shop and offer credit cards and Pay Pal as payment options.
Both the credit card processing company and Pay Pal recommend us vendors not send orders to
addresses that are not billing address in the even of credit card fraud. However, I, personally, have
not seen any shop that do not ask for shipping address at checkout. How are you vendors out there handling this? Currently I do NOT offer to ship orders to non billing addresses. I feel that I am losing customers but I am scared of chargeback. Any tips?

Thank you.

jbinbpt

12:51 pm on Jul 27, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Hi JunJunJun,
A lot depends on you business model and comfort level. Their method would prevent you from directly shipping a gift for a customer to the recipient. Does that work into your business model?
Most of my online purchasers have their packages shipped to their offices. That’s what works for our business.
We can turn the question around and ask it this way. Do you want all of your online purchases going to your home address?
IMHO there is a big difference between what the credit card companies say they want you to do and what they actually want you to do. Do they really want to limit usage of their cards?
Yours is a tough call, if you can’t cover the cost of potential chargebacks, then doing what you are doing is the only way to go, but it will limit you business.
jb

Shoestring

12:28 am on Jul 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



We've been in the mail order business a long time and on the web since the very early days. At one time we always insisted on shipping only to the billing address, for all first time orders and any over a certain dollar amount. We still had chargebacks and fraud, however.

Then, we decided to forgo the requirement for a time to "test" the increase in business. We saw a definate increase, more than enough to deal with the few additional chargebacks and fraud.

One thing that we later did which substantially reduced fraud was to "toughen" our on-line verbage against it on the order form. We present it as fraud protection for the customer, a positive, but word it so that potential cons know we are "on the case" and dead serious about stopping it. Yes, we still have to accept x number of fraud transactions per year as the cost of doing business, but between an eagle eye (we process off line) and the tougher language it is much lower than the industry standard from what I am told.

Our biggest problem is from chargebacks pertaining to customers who simply do not recognize our "corporate" name on their statements. We get most resolved, but still lose all the time, trouble and $25 chargeback fee from the processor. It really burns me up, because they refuse to list our URL to help eliminate the customer confusion and insist that our corporate name be listed.

WibbleWobble

3:54 pm on Jul 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



It really burns me up, because they refuse to list our URL to help eliminate the customer confusion and insist that our corporate name be listed.

Couldn't you list your corporate name on the invoices so users are prepared? Or do you, already? :)

Shoestring

10:54 pm on Jul 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Yes, we state very clearly on both the invoice and separate shipment tracking email the name they should expect to see on their card statement. It is a real hassle, we're dealing with several today in fact with it being end of the month.

4crests

12:12 am on Jul 29, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I have the same exact problem as SHOESTRING. It really sucks. We explain to our customers to expect a charge from our Corporate name. We explain it on our website, they again see it on the confirmation screen that pops up after the order and finally again in a confirmation email. I also include it on the bottom of all Misc. Emails I may have with the customer. But, no matter how hard we try some CUSTOMERS JUST DON'T READ!

Many of them are just interested in getting their products. It's easier to do a chargeback later than to pay attention now to who they actually ordered from.

As for JunJunJun's original question. Our policy is to ship to any address we get. We have been selling online since 1994, and I can only remember maybe twice getting a fraudulent order of this type. Chargeback's and Bad Checks are by far our biggest concern.

While on the subject of Chargebacks, I wish a bunch of consumers would get together and file a class action suit against the merchant providers for CHARGEBACK FEES.

Someone orders something from me. The charges get reversed by the credit card company, and I get a $25 fine. Sometimes the customer even keeps the product. So, I'm out the cost of the product, the money gets taken back out of my account, and I get a $25 fine. Then, it's up to me to try to get my product back from the customer somehow. All the customer has to tell the credit card company is that the package they received was full of Rocks, or broken, or that Santa Claus took it, or whatever else bogus story they want. Something just doesn't seem right here. oooh that just PI$$ES ME OFF.

4crests

12:13 am on Jul 29, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



ok, so i'm having a bad day

:)