I just want to send you your stuff. Why is this so hard?

July 28, 2016 1:28 PM

I want to send some small, low-value items to some people all over the U.S. and world. Many of them would prefer to not just give me their address. So I need a middleman: someone that will take their addresses and ship the items for me without me ever knowing their addresses. I'm not trying to start a store to make money off of this. I just want to do something simple and nice on a limited basis.

I made these iron-on patches for a gaming group I created within a subreddit on Reddit. We host a casual worldwide gaming party every six weeks or so. The first one went really well, so I thought I'd make some merchandise to make things a little more fun. I made shirts through Teespring, and that's going swimmingly. Teespring takes the orders, prints the shirts as I designed them, and ships them worldwide at the end of the campaign. Then I get the profits. Easy peasy.

I also had an idea to have some patches made using the logo for the event. I found a brilliant patch embroidery company (Stadri Emblems for those wondering), and they made me 100 amazing patches and sent them to my apartment, as arranged. Uh oh, though. How do I get these patches to my people all over the world?

Teespring's policy would not allow them to shove these patches in with the shirt orders for me. Fair enough.

I asked that people who ordered shirts or who wanted patches send their address information to an email account I created for this event, and I would contact them with shipping and payment details and handle this small quantity of shipping myself. However, there was a lot of reluctance to do this. So, now I have 100 patches, and no secure way to ship them to people. What do I do?

I contacted Shipito, which does this thing for the buyer. They provide an intermediate American shipping address for buyers outside the U.S. to purchase U.S. goods with cheaper shipping, then they ship them outside the U.S. using their excellent shipping options. They don't provide the service I needed as a shipper, but they suggested Fulfillment By Amazon as a possibility. I've read through the FBA pages as best I could, but I can't tell if this is too much or not for a small amount of low-value goods sent out once or maybe twice. I have NO experience selling online except on eBay. Maybe I should use eBay and just demand they give me their addresses regardless. I. Don't. Know.

This is all getting too complicated for me. I'm just a guy who wanted to do a nice, fun thing. I was going to make the patches free for those that bought a shirt and $5 a piece for those that didn't. I was willing to put in the leg work to send these things out myself all over the world. I've sent plenty of things to perfect strangers before, and this never came up; they were just happy to get their stuff. Is there something out there that would work for what I've described? Should I delve into Fulfillment By Amazon, which looks like maybe more than I need? Again, I don't know. Help.

posted by KinoAndHermes to Shopping (9 answers total)

I can understand people's reluctance to email their actual address to a semi-random person off the internet. You don't need a shipping service, you need something that makes people feel safe handing over their address.

I'd set up an Etsy shop, sell the patches for $5, and send a $5 coupon code to the people who purchased shirts. Never mind that you're still the one who gets their address and mails the patches out, having that well-established Etsy platform just feels less shady. Rightly or wrongly, you kinda assume that Etsy has done some basic vetting of the seller and that if something goes wrong, the buyer will have some means of recourse.
posted by yeahlikethat at 1:40 PM on July 28, 2016 [21 favorites]

If they're that concerned about giving out their address, they can get a post office box. That's what they're for. I don't see why you need to concern yourself over their decision.
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:40 PM on July 28, 2016 [9 favorites]

Seconding just using etsy or ebay to add a bit of formality to the process. Even if the difference is mostly psychological I tend to be more okay with dealing with a storefront than just emailing my address somewhere as there's the sense that there's some recourse if something goes wrong. If at that point they're still unwilling to share their address then that's on them.
posted by Aleyn at 1:47 PM on July 28, 2016

Another way you could make it easier is just a one-item store if you have any web skills at all and take "payment" via PayPal. I made this page (note: nothing there actually for sale now) using an HTML form and googling some PayPal info to sell some t-shirts and people could pay via PayPal and then use their existing address iirc. Simpler: sell them on eBay for 50 cents (the price of postage) and then people can use their existing addresses as well. Basically I think the Reddit environment makes people wary of being doxxed or otherwise Reddit-style harassed but if there was a bigger entity like PayPal or Ebay in the middle maybe they would feel less that way. With something that would fit in a business envelope, I'd work harder to find some way you can just do all of this yourself.

Possibility: is it something about the group or possibly you? Could you basically pay some random third party do handle this in an authoritative way?
posted by jessamyn at 1:58 PM on July 28, 2016

Is the payment more the hangup than sharing the address? If so, rather than paying $5 can you ask people so send a SASE that you can just stuff and drop in the mail?
posted by handful of rain at 1:58 PM on July 28, 2016

Response by poster: As far as I know, it's giving out their address that's the issue. I could take payment via Paypal. Maybe I'll just set up an eBay auction for 100 items and see how that goes. That has eBay and Paypal in the middle adding respectability.
posted by KinoAndHermes at 2:15 PM on July 28, 2016

Why don't you just send the items "General Delivery" (Poste Restante internationally)? That way all they have to do is give you the city that they want to pick up the package, you mail the items, and they pick them up at the post office. Everyone is happy.
posted by seasparrow at 2:52 PM on July 28, 2016 [10 favorites]

I asked that people who ordered shirts or who wanted patches send their address information to an email account I created for this event, and I would contact them with shipping and payment details and handle this small quantity of shipping myself. However, there was a lot of reluctance to do this.

Saying you'll contact them for payment details sounds a little shady. Yes, you could just take payment via PapPal, but you didn't say that -- people don't know that you aren't going to ask them to pay in some weird sketchy way.

Also, the way you've presented it makes it sound fussy and complicated. Just set up a way for people to pay and give you the address, whether that's on PayPal or Etsy or whatever, and then post about if you want a patch do this thing. Something where the person can do it and be done with the task, not wondering what they are getting themselves into.
posted by yohko at 5:56 PM on July 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

Having used both Ebay and Etsy as a seller, I'd go with Etsy in this case. It's very very easy and would be a great way to do what you're looking for.
posted by fiercecupcake at 7:48 AM on July 29, 2016