Just Another Monday in Jersey - except this time we are having a birthday bash and breaking all the rules

Happpy Columbus Day Everyone!

(you know we love our postal holidays)

And happy 10/10/10 birthday to my daughter Kella - we had a great dinner out last night just the four of us and tonight is the big roller derby bash- which is kind of like regular roller skating except without all those pesky rules for safety - hope no one breaks their coccyx - thanks for reminding me of this Tori!

And speaking of "rules", this weekend I was checking out some holiday gifts I want to buy from Etsy's amazing handcrafters and artists and I noticed a few shops with some rather strange policies for shoppers.

Things like - if you don't buy insurance and this doesn't reach you - it is your problem or lists of places they will not ship or they only ship out of the country with expensive priority shipping (not expensive or one of a kind items) and I am thinking that likely something has gone wrong, probably once - maybe twice- and the seller has created a policy around it.

This is how bureaucracies are created - one little policy at a time. My advice - policies are meant for situations that come up again and again and for things that there are no other ways around.

(and this is not one of those customers are always right things ... because, well, they're not)

If you are not going to replace something that is lost in the mail (I do and I ship alot of stuff and it very rarely happens) then include the insurance in your shipping charge. Don't require the customer to search out your policies and then request it.

If you are in the U.S. and are not shipping to Canada or the UK or Australia or are using expensive priority shipping to ship there when your items are inexpensive, you might want to rethink it.

I shipped 168 packages to Canada last year (1 was lost). Imagine if I had overreacted when that shipment to Canada never showed up and stopped shipping to Canada - I would have lost out on dozens of other sales.

I also shipped 1 package to Nebraska (1 was lost). Imagine if I had overreacted when that shipment to Nebraska never showed up and stopped shipping to Nebraska - I would have lost out on ... well... wait a minute ...

actually maybe I should stop shipping to Nebraska- it seems no one likes me there anyway ...