How to not package International Shipments of Board Games

I got a couple of board games last week from an Amazon seller in Malaysia.
Previously, I ordered a bunch and they came in a sturdy UPS box. That was awesome.
This time, two of them came in bubble wrap and a UPS mailer.
Check the packaging before I open it:

.
.

Not encouraging, but okay. It might be fine inside.
I peel off the UPS materials.

On gfirst glance, we might still be okay.
I look closer, though, and pull off the bubble wrap. Notice the bulge on the top edge of that side?

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Okay. Here's another view of it:
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Notice that the damage goes all the way through to the cardboard of the box. You could actually touch the exposed cardboard of the box *through* the bubble wrap.
Moral of the story:
Use a cardboard box, or three or more layers of bubble wrap when shipping any board game anywhere.
In defense of this seller, one of the two items sent was fine aside from slightly rounded corners to the cardboard of the box and looking at their feedback.. the last time they had a complaint about shipping damage that resulted in non-positive feedback was early November, and it looks like they sell at least 100 units per month.

Honorable Mention For Creative Seller Name: Fenouil Books with Tracking Number

Many booksellers choose a name that will inspire confidence or win the hearts of consumers.
I've never seen one that mentioned their shipping practices before.
Note this seller's listing:

• Seller: Fenouil Books with Tracking Number
• Seller Rating:98% positive over the past 12 months. (705 total ratings)
• In Stock. Ships from CA, United States. 
  Domestic shipping rates and return policy.

and here's his storefront link.

Solid feedback stats and all.
One weird thing is the book descriptions all end with some non-human-decipherable garbage, but if the feedback is good, I suppose it doesn't bother customers.
Examples:

The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn (Hardcover): Dust jacket missing............./ii

Creating Space: The Story of the Space Age Through Models: Apogee Books Space Series 24 (Paperback): Clean....................../4

American National Government and Politics in the Economy: Aprimer of American Political Economy (Paperback): Underlining with pencil on some pages.........................../7

Maybe the numbers are shelf numbering? I wonder why you'd mix Roman (ii) and Arabic (4) numbering systems, though.
Honorable mention to you, Fenouil Books with Tracking Number.
Keep up the good feedback, and you won't get any 'No Cookies' !

Well, if they get the money they're asking for this book they're a VERY GOOD bookseller, and I'll send them a cookie.

Today, in the high-priced book category we have Amazon's SDSU_Books.
I would assume they were South Dakota State University, but since they say they ship from California, probably not. The university's bookstore would probably have more than the 4 feedback they have as well.

Here's the book:

Money, Banking and Financial Markets (Paperback) by Stephen G. Cecchetti ‹ Return to product information

..

And here's their listing:

$87,564,320,112.99 + $3.99shipping

Used - Very Good

Seller: SDSU_Books Seller Rating:100% positive. (4 total ratings) In Stock. Expedited shipping available. International & domestic shipping rates and return policy. If you read this book, you'll be able to afford the price! Ships from CA

Notice the low, low price of $87,564,320,112.99 and $3.99 in shipping. You'd think they'd thrown in the shipping for free at that price, but maybe Amazon won't let them.

There is another problem with this listing, but it's more Amazon's fault than theirs.
The book in question is a McGraw Hill international edition. If you blow up the picture of the book by clicking on it at its Amazon page, you'll notice that it says, "This International Student Edition is for use outside of the U.S."
Amazon shouldn't have a catalog page for items like this, and has banned third-party sellers in the past for listing these. The look of the page leads me to believe that Amazon, not a third-party seller created the page. It's got a bunch of reviews, and they're not from yesterday, so this listing has been around for a while.
Here's a link to the product page for this item.

Student Actor Doesn't Understand Why You Can't Sell Photocopies Of Sheet Music On Amazon!

Bad Seller, No Cookie goes out to Amazon's apgilmore today.
Here's the product:

Grease (Vocal Score) (Paperback) by Jim Jacobs, Warren Casey ‹ Return to product information

for the record, you can find this by searching for 088188023X in the search field at the top of Amazon's front age.

Here's the listing:

• Seller: apgilmore
• Seller Rating:100% positive. (2 total ratings)
• In Stock.
  Domestic shipping rates and return policy.
• MINE IS COPIED ON PLAIN COMPUTER PAPER but its the whole musical section libretto/vocal book to the show. Some notes written inside from being in the show. 

Alright folks, that's all for now!

Even Booksellers Get Nigerian Scammers!

I got this email today. 

Subject: BOOKS

from John Coker

to robertlutz@ameritech.net

date Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 12:04 PM

subject BOOKS

mailed-by yahoo.com

signed-by yahoo.com

Gooday am interested in your books i will need the list history books you have in store and there are price  your details concernng this item before proceeding with the payment. the method of Bank Check  Email back, if it still for sale.

Regards

 

I guarantee you this is a variant of the advance fee scam or perhaps the 'oops, I sent you a check too big, could you send some of the money back?' scam. 

I'd like to play with this guy like the guys over at this site do:

http://www.419eater.com/

but since he may know where I sell, there's a small chance of feedback manipulation or identity theft or the like. If it was at one of my anonymous Hotmail accounts I keep just for registering at websites with, then we could have some fun. 

Check 419eater out, it's great for a laugh. I probably spent two hours reading the first time I ran across it, laughing the whole time. 

Anyone want to guess which scam this guy was running?

Amazon seller Bversek: Don’t illegally use USPS materials! Also, don’t wrap books in newspaper!

This is a little lesson for the new booksellers out there.
When you get an order that you’re going to send Media Mail, you’ve got to find your own packaging material.
You can’t just use USPS pre-provided Priority Mail or Express Mail packaging.
The seller who sent me the below parcel didn’t know that.
I ordered from Bversek on Amazon on September 6.
The postage for the item was printed on September 8.
At 5:11 PM on September 10th, the item was scanned at acceptance by the US Postal Service. This was 4 business days after the order. Amazon requires that you ship within two days of the order, so that scan should have taken place on the 8th, not the 10th.
My carrier scanned the item as 'Out for delivery' at 9:14 AM. The item was scanned as delivered at 4:29 PM, which is when it was physically delivered. Kudos to the carrier for being honest, as some carriers have a bad habit of scanning packages before they actually get to the destination.
I saw the book on the evening of September 14th, and it came in this package (not that I have edited the images to conceal the source and destination:

Not cool. Media Mail needs to go in something besides USPS Priority Mail packaging. Them's the rules!
What happens much of the time when you send USPS Media Mail in Priority Mail packaging is:
- The USPS catches it and makes your customer pay the difference between Media Mail and Priority Mail. Your customer gets ticked!
- The USPS catches it and returns the book to you with a stamp saying ‘Insufficient Postage’. Your customer gets ticked!

I’ve left negative feedback before for this kind of thing, but the guy is basically brand-new, so I won’t neg him. He tries hard, and was responsive in our earlier email correspondence, although he made one other mistake: he packed the book in newspaper. Newspaper’s ink has a bad habit of rubbing off on items you pack in it, which really isn’t that big of a deal if it’s a plastic cup, but stinks if you’re mailing a book. I got lucky, no damage this time.
If you want to be a successful bookselling pro, you can order quality packaging materials here:
http://www.uline.com/
I suggest these products:
For valuable books, I like this box:

Enlarge

Fill the voids with this stuff, which is reasonably economical, and has no ink to rub off on your books:

Enlarge

Less valuable items may be packed in these guys, but please be careful about bending softcover corners and sending excessively heavy items in them:




Notice this guy’s feedback. He seems to be pretty new:
Bversek 

Feedback Rating:  5.0 stars over the past 12 months (1 rating) Feedback 30 days 90 days 365 days Lifetime Positive 100% 100% 100% 100% Neutral 0% 0% 0% 0% Negative 0% 0% 0% 0% Count 1 1 1 1 What do these mean?

Recent Feedback:

5 out of 5: "Great seller! Contacted me about late delivery, but it still came in earlier than expected. Item in great condition, just as he described. Highly recommend"  Date: September 6, 2010     Rated by Buyer: Ben M.

Bad bookseller Bversek! No cookie!

Appendix:
You've got two days to ship, per this Amazon page.
The USPS frowns on using Priority Mail boxes for Media Mail.

Honorable Mention For A Bookseller Name That Gave Me A Chuckle

Anyone remember Seinfeld?
How about the Lex Luthor to Seinfeld's Superman, Newman?
The poignant menacing tone Seinfeld always used to use when Newman appeared?
Youtube Video Link
Well, here's a seller that does:

hellonewmanbooks 

For his storefront,  click here.
He's got solid feedback.

hellonewmanbooks Feedback Count (Lifetime) Positive Neutral Negative 320 99% 0% 1% All Feedback: Next Page
5 out of 5:	"goooooooood++++" Date: August 16, 2010     Rated by Buyer: steve
5 out of 5:	"Book arrived within timeframe, in fact early as I recall. It was in brand new condition, tight and unread. Very happy with condition of book. Thank you. M. Shaw" Date: July 31, 2010     Rated by Buyer: Mary S.
5 out of 5:	"Excellent" Date: July 28, 2010     Rated by Buyer: youlin x.
5 out of 5:	"Everything exactly as promised. Thank you very much." Date: July 24, 2010     Rated by Buyer: marionfeld

Thanks for making the bookselling world look good, and for not naming yourself Lactation Nurse!
Good Bookseller! Cookies for you!
I'm thinking I should actually hand out cookies to good booksellers. Any cookie sellers out there with click-referral programs? Let me know if you're out there. Maybe good booksellers should get cupcakes instead? Hit me up if you've got opinions. Personally, I'd rather get spicy beef jerky from these guys, but that's just me.