I recently purchased through “THE” auction site a brass locomotive from one of those “we’ll sell your stuff for you” places. It was shipped, engine and tender together without bubble pack, in a plastic grocery bag, inside another plastic bag, inside the rather tatty original box. All this was put into the typical cardboard box with popcorn and newspapers. There was some damage due to the poor packing. There were also some parts missing.
My reason for bringing this up is to caution my fellow modelers that not everyone understands how to properly pack model railroad equipment. I can readily believe that the packer thought that what they did was proper–I doubt they knew any better. The little bitty parts probably weren’t even noticed. I would recommend caution before bidding on anything “special” put up by someone who isn’t demonstrating in their post an obvious understanding of our needs.
I must mention that I’ve bought stuff on internet auction for years–lots of stuff. EVERYONE to this date has done an adequate to superior job of packing. But then, until now, I have not bought from one of these services.
You’ve been warned, folks.
By the way, I’m not planning on trying to trade the item back for my money. I don’t believe that doing the repairs is going to be all that difficult, and I do suspect that doing the exchange might be. And, it’s still a nice loco and destined for some moderate to heavy weathering–repainting probably won’t be necessary. So, I’m not strikingly unhappy.
I owned a catalog mail-order company. As such I used several of the big-name carriers. There is such a reliability relationship with the carriers that they will send experts to your company to teach you the fundamentals of packing for shipment.
EBayers use the USPS because of the way it is integrated into PayPal, and USPS had no such program. Heck, they are the Post Office. They don’t have to care. Consequently, if the company started as an eBay company, they haven’t have the exposure to the techniques that the “pro” shippers do.
While UPS may offer how-to seminars for their customers, “my” guys are pretty small potatoes. Perhaps UPS has yet to make the offer; or, perhaps, these folks just blew it off. They don’t seem to be the brightest tacks/sharpest bulbs in their field. However, I managed to put the basics of packing together COMPLETELY without formal training–they’re actually in the business.
Combining my business and my personal life, I get packages several times a week. Both UPS and Postal have done their job just fine. It’s really nice to “know” that the package will indeed show up and not be (so far) squished (squishing being existent but statistically insignificant unless it happens to me).
I have had no issues with any shipper, (Canada Post, UPS, FedEx, Purolator, etc) as long as the original packaging was done properly. You can not blame the shipping company for poorly packaged parcels.