Only Ship Your Items After You Are Paid In Full

It may not always be easy to ask for it and some customers may disagree with you, but you absolutely must be paid 100% before you ship out any item to a customer. No matter how honest your customers are, your chance of receiving money after they receive their item is just about zero. Being paid in full prior to shipping means:

Any check you received as a payment must be deposited and cleared or cashed. Having the check in your hand is not sufficient. Make sure it is good by depositing it and waiting for it to clear. This could take 10 days. If there is an error on the check you may not be able to deposit it. That is why you need to make sure it is deposited.

Verify that a Paypal payment has been received by checking your account and go ahead and transfer the money out of your account before shipping an item.

For custom orders make sure to request 50% up front and 50% upon completion. Send photos of the finished item to the customer for their approval so they can confidently send you the final payment. Once that goes through go ahead and ship the item.

There are no scenarios that I can think of where it would make sense to ship prior to receiving a payment. It is a mistake you only make once and it can be a costly one.

Richard

Tags: paid in full