Packing Large Dolls for Shipping

I think it would vary and it's worth asking the buyer. Some people would prefer to pay high shipping fees to receive a doll they don't have to immediately string.

You should always declare the full value of the shipment as a private seller. If the package is lost then you wouldn't be able to claim for the full price of the doll, only what you declared. If a buyer asked you to under declare the package I personally wouldn't do so. Businesses can sometimes afford to under declare because they do a high volume of business.

 

I’ve sold a lot of dolls. I’m somewhat of a revolving door collector. So I always let the buyer choose whether they want unstrung or strung. Some people don’t like restringing, or can’t do it for medical reasons, so always shipping unstrung would limit potential buyers a little. Some people will want the original box to prove legitimacy as well. You can always cut down other large cardboard boxes to wrap the company box in a cardboard shipper to protect it.

If you ship unstrung, you’ll want to be especially careful of how you wrap the hands, because fingers can be fragile. If the fingers are curled, I tend to fill the hands with foam, and then wrap thickly in bubble wrap. I also line the box with bubble wrap and then wrap each part individually, and mark L for left and R for right to make it easy for the buyer to assemble them (not everyone does this but I like sellers that do!)

Declared value is a complex issue. Safest for you as a seller is to fully declare/fully insure so that if your package goes missing, you can get the money to refund your buyer via that insurance. I’ve had to do that once, and it worked out. The caveat is that a large portion of the hobby is in the US, and now that there are tariffs, Americans may be hesitant to buy anything fully declared from other countries.

I streamline it to two options: both of us are protected, or neither of us are. To protect both of us, I get the buyer to pay goods&services, and ship insured. If it goes missing, they can open a PayPal claim, and/or I can open an insurance claim, but we’re both guaranteed our money back: them through PayPal, me through insurance. The neither of us option is that I ask them to pay friends and family, and then I ship declared low and uninsured. If the doll goes missing, they can’t get money back from PayPal, and I can’t get it back from insurance. They can choose to take that risk to sidestep customs fees. I only recently started offering to do this, and my preference is still to do it “right” and fully declare/fully insure/g&s payment. What I don’t do is PayPal g&s and underdeclared/uninsured, because PayPal will refund the buyer if it goes missing, but they will refund the buyer out of your account, and you will lose the money if the doll goes missing. I choose not to take that risk.