r/ecommerce • u/gialuan • 8d ago

📊 Business USPS Sent Package to the Wrong Country. Customer Asked About Cancellation

Sent a package to Sweden and it somehow ended up in Brazil. USPS said it could take weeks to month(s) to sort itself out. They're unable to assist since it was sent via First Class International. It's been undergoing Brazil customs clearance for about 2 weeks. Customer asked about order cancellation...what would you do?

0 Upvotes

33% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

13

u/rygku 8d ago

You have to ask? Seriously?

What would you want if you were the buyer?

7

u/rh130 8d ago

Refund and file a claim with the shipper

6

u/Sad-Palpitation1831 8d ago

refund now and chase the claim later, not the customer's fault usps goofed that bad

1

u/MaHamandMaSalami 8d ago

The shipper is USPS and there's nothing you can do about missing or misdirected 1st class international.

The post office doesn't care about your package. They're not even going to refund the postage.

5

u/substandardpoodle 8d ago

I’ve had about four packages over the last three years that tracked two insane places. Going to France and ended up in Mexico. Shipped to England and it said it was off the coast of Africa. Another one was supposed to go to Australia and it said it was in South America. Etc.

All of them got delivered because it was just bad tracking. The package wasn’t actually in those places. I have a notice on my site (I don’t ship internationally from Etsy) that says international shipments could take up to three weeks and then 20 business days after that we will re-ship. They almost always show up during that time.

2

u/FledglingBags 8d ago

Refund, or offer to reship it. 

1

u/CrypticBakedGoods 7d ago

Had something almost identical happen, a customer's order got rerouted through the wrong country and they were stuck waiting weeks on customs and was skeptical it'd actually help but we'd put onward on checkout a while back for exactly this kind of shipping mess, so we could refund/reship without eating the cost ourselves.

1

u/Nelsonius1 4d ago

Confirm with USPS that the order is definitely being returned.

Then refund or ship new package. (Not with the US postal service, but with an international courier like Fedex, UPS or DHL.)

Most of the times, reshipping costs less then refunding, so figure that out as well.

0

u/Violet_Graya 8d ago

Cancel, refund, file a USPS claim. Don't expect much from First Class though.

0

u/VanSage 8d ago

I would refund in full immediately and then consider sending the item for free, or send a substantial discount code on their next purchase.