From time to time, we get asked an uncomfortable question or two where the answer we provide never seems to sit well with the customer. Two of the most pervasive issues have to do with holding merchandise for the customer and refusing to ship to an alternate address. To get everyone on the same page, here’s the reason we do what we do.

To answer the first question we have roughly 15,000 customers in our database. Now if every customer asked us to hold an item or two for them so they could save on shipping costs we would literally have to open a separate warehouse containing held merchandise potentially for indefinite periods of time. Not only is this problematic for any number of reasons, the simplest answer is that we have invoices to pay and cannot do so with held merchandise. Our cash flow would be crimped and, from a logistical standpoint, it simply would not work for us as we continue to stack and dodge piles of unpaid merchandise that could have been sold off.

Now. to answer the second question. We did at one time ship to an alternate address, oftentimes because the item was meant to be given as a gift or no one was going to be home to receive the package. Lo and behold, a few years ago we shipped two radio controlled vehicles to an alternate address as stipulated on the order. A few weeks later, we received a charge back notification in the mail from our credit card processor. It turns out that even though we provided proof of delivery, the credit card company would only protect the merchant if he or she ships to the billing address. It doesn’t matter that we got a legitimate authorization code when the sale was entered, did our due diligence by going over all of the order’s details, or shipped the package where it was intended to go and provided proof of delivery. As a result, we got stung and lost the case, leaving us little else but to lose out on a couple of hundred dollars as well as a charge back fee to boot. Now I know that by publicizing this, other merchants might get a bit nervous, but have hopefully taken similar steps to protect their business from fraudulent transactions. I cannot speak for them and they are certainly free to do as they please. But for me, that one bad transaction left a sour taste in my mouth that I never quite got over.

Ebay offers one solution to this quandary. If the mailing address is different than the billing address, the customer must stipulate where the package is to be sent in their closed messaging system where the merchant, customer and eBay representative can see the back-and-forth communiques. At that point, eBay will protect the merchant should the customer still decide to open a case for non-receipt of goods or claim they never ordered the merchandise to begin with. Its not the best solution for everyone concerned, but one that seems to work given the vagaries of e-commerce and the risk the merchant is willing to undertake to help a customer and complete a sale.