Selling on eBay is great but can also be a lot of work. Part of that work includes shipping. Not only does shipping determine whether you get a good feedback or not but it also determines whether you will get ripped off or not.

The following is important information about shipping items correctly not just to protect your customer's purchase but to protect yourself as well.

It's always wise to ship items to the winning bidders as quickly as possible. Nobody wants to receive an item a month after they paid for it; that usually will get you either a neutral feedback or in some cases a negative feedback. So do yourself a favor and ship people's items in a timely matter.

When shipping any items to winning bidders you must ABSOLUTELY ship the items with delivery confirmation (DC). This is not something that you should take as being optional but mandatory.

Delivery confirmation, or DC, is a way to track a shipment and allows both the buyer and seller to see if said item(s) have been delivered to the address of the buyer. However, it's extremely important to the seller because it's proof that you as the seller sent the item.

So if a buyer claims they never got an item they paid for, you have proof that you sent the item. Because if you don't have proof (DC) that you sent the item and the buyer complains to eBay, eBay will rule in the buyer's favor and make you refund them their money even if you really did send their item(s).

In fact, it's essential to have DC not just because the item(s) could get lost by the mail service but because there are many unscrupulous buyers on eBay who will claim they didn't get an item or items even if they did.

Buyers will be able to tell that an item they receive doesn't have DC when they get the item(s) by looking at the postage; so why give any buyer a chance to rip you off because not only will you be forced to give them a refund but the unscrupulous buyer will get to keep the item(s) as well.

However, with more expensive items that you sell, you may want to have signature confirmation for the item as well as DC not to mention insurance. Signature confirmation is just having someone sign for a delivery, and if you want a specific person to sign for the delivery, you will want 'restricted signature confirmation'.

Obviously when it comes to shipping an item, you want to securely package it, especially if it's something fragile. So package the buyer's item(s) with care, and if it's fragile clearly mark it so the item(s) are handled with care.

Because even if the item(s) are insured, if its not packaged properly and it gets damaged, you will lose the insurance claim. And this could result in you having to either issue a partial refund or a full refund to the buyer; or at the very least offer something for free to keep the buyer happy.

But if you choose not to issue a refund for damaged items or not to rectify the situation in any way, be prepared to get negative feedbacks.

Likewise, insurance is only usually necessary on purchases that are $100 or more but that's a call you as the seller should make.

So hopefully this information on shipping items sold on eBay was food for thought and will prove useful in your eBay selling.