Who pays shipping on customer error?

[zetajenn]

I run an agribusiness branch, where a large part of our online business is Christmas gift baskets and gift boxes, half or more of our Christmas sales are from corporate orders where people are ordering gifts for their clients. For corporate orders, they usually call or email me what box/basket they want and a list of addresses to ship to. In this case we shipped to each individual customer (which is usually the case). I had a customer that ordered around 50 gift boxes and we've settled up the bill already, but when I got my UPS statement, there were 5 addresses that were incorrect that the my customer sent me. UPS charges $12.35 per shipment that has to be corrected and it was all done without notice to me so now I have $61 in extra charges for that one order. We've decided to eat the $61 this time and next year tell people ahead of time to make sure their addresses are correct or they will be responsible for the extra charges after the fact. What do you guys think and have you ever had this happen?
Thanks in advance!

[Freelancier]

Yes, I would add it to the customer's orders next year once you warn them ahead of time that incorrect addresses may incur a surcharge after the order is delivered.

In the meantime: you made a single sale of 50 gift boxes and all the profit from that with a slight extra cost on some of the boxes. I found that chasing the small dollars when you're making much bigger dollars is not a fruitful pursuit and tends to get people mad at you.

[Harold Mansfield]

I think you definitely made the right move. I would handle it exactly as you've done.

[nealrm]

I think you made the right call, however I would look into the address corrections. First I think a $12.50 charge without notice is unreasonable. Second, I would want to verify what type of address correction was made. Are we talking cases were an additional trip was made or were the deliver walked one suit over. I would also look at the incorrect address policies of other package delivery services.

You may also look into verifying the addresses when the order are taken. A simple Google search will resolve most company addresses.

[KristineS]

You definitely made the right call. Just make sure when you advise people of this policy for next year that they actually comprehend it. Put it in writing on your website, make sure it's on all order confirmations and is mentioned by your customer service people when they talk to customers. It should also be on your policies page.

[Harold Mansfield]

Also many eCommerce and Shipping softwares have address verification add ons that instantly check to see if that address is in the postal system anywhere. I'd definitely check into adding one on as a fail safe. That way you can get back to the client for verification before you ship and waste money.

[zetajenn]

We use UPS worldship. It verifies addresses before printing and if there is ever any question when it verifies then I head to google or email my customer to check the address. Some of the corrections were wrong street address and one was a completely different town. I imagine the customer moved offices. Sometimes they come all the way back to me with no warning...this time changed with no warning. I'm ok with that part I guess b/c I wanted it to get to the right place, and we ship a couple of thousand packages in December so I can't google each address or track each one to see whats going on with it. I like what you said Kristin about it being in policies and made clear and I will work on getting that into our site asap!

[Brian Altenhofel]

Sounds like you handled it in a good way.

One thing about address verification - some carriers don't always have current addresses. For example, I live in a rural area. Six years ago, we had a mandatory change in address system from rural route boxes to "street" addresses. Two years ago, USPS quick making automatic corrections. However, FedEx often (but not every time) sends an Address Correction to the shipper when we use our legal address. They "correct" it to the old rural route box address, which USPS sometimes won't handle (depends on the carrier that day) when it's a package that FedEx hands over to USPS for the final leg.

[chrismarklee]

I would eat it and pay it. You want good will. Your margins need to help cover these types of expenses

[billbenson]

If you just have one order like this out of a bunch of orders and you think this order may be a repeat customer, I'd eat the $61. If you have a bunch of wrong addresses something else is wrong.

I honestly can't remember an online order with a wrong address. Rural areas can have some odd adresses, but they are correct. I do run into incorrect products sold or not able to deliver because an entrance gate is closed after hours.

If it is B2B there should be no problem with shipping it back on their card. If it's a consumer return you might want to consider eating the expense if you think they will come back.

[KristineS]

Bad addresses do happen Bill. The customer has multiple addresses in the system and picks the wrong one. Sometimes they just spell something wrong an don't notice it. Sometimes they leave off a suite number or something. We have address verification, with Fed Ex, UPS and USPS, but bad addresses do get through. The only thing to do is have a policy in place if that happens and make sure your customers know what that policy is.

[tallen]

It should also be noted that the people to whom the gift baskets are being shipped are not the one who supplied the addresses to zetajenn -- those people are not her customers, rather a third party (her customer) has purchased the gift baskets and asked to have them shipped to these 50 addresses, and some of the addresses supplied by the third party were somehow not valid...

[billbenson]

Bad addresses do happen Bill. The customer has multiple addresses in the system and picks the wrong one. Sometimes they just spell something wrong an don't notice it. Sometimes they leave off a suite number or something. We have address verification, with Fed Ex, UPS and USPS, but bad addresses do get through. The only thing to do is have a policy in place if that happens and make sure your customers know what that policy is.

I'm sure they do. It just hasn't been an issue with me. But I do a lot of orders on PO's. Its easy to say you screwed up the adress in that case.

In any case, I'll stick by my statement that if it is a small percentage of your purchases and they might be a repeat customer, I'd eat the loss.