For sellers
Packaging Guidelines
How you package what you ship is on you, not the carrier and not Make an Offer. This is standard commercial practice, not a platform-specific rule: carriers are only liable for damage in transit if the goods were properly packaged for the journey in the first place, packaging is treated as the shipper’s job everywhere, freight law included.
The rule that matters
If goods arrive damaged because they genuinely weren’t packaged well enough for how they were sent, that’s the seller’s fault, not the carrier’s and not the buyer’s. The handover photo you upload when marking goods ready or dispatched is what establishes the condition they left you in, if a damage dispute is raised, that photo is compared against what the buyer received. Package it properly and that comparison protects you; package it poorly and it doesn’t.
General principles
- Package for the roughest handling the method could realistically involve, not the handling you hope it gets.
- Fill empty space. Movement inside a box or against a pallet wall is what causes most transit damage, not the drop itself.
- Protect the weakest point, corners, edges, and anything that sticks out, first.
- Label clearly: fragile, this way up, weight, and handling instructions, whichever apply. A carrier can’t handle correctly what isn’t marked.
- Photograph the finished, sealed package before it leaves you. This is your evidence, not just a formality, and it’s exactly what the handover-photo step asks for.
Palletised or crated freight
- Use a pallet in good condition, no broken boards, no protruding nails, rated for the load.
- Keep everything within the pallet’s footprint, no overhang, the pallet should support the full base of what’s stacked on it.
- Stack evenly and stabilise the load with stretch wrap, banding, or corner boards so nothing can shift, several wraps low down anchor the load to the pallet itself before wrapping the rest.
- Use dividers or corner protectors between items that could scratch, dent, or press against each other.
Boxed or parcelled goods
- Use a box rated for the weight, a box that flexes or bulges under the contents will fail in transit.
- Seal every seam, including the bottom, tape across where the flaps meet, not just down the centre line.
- Cushion fragile items individually, bubble wrap, foam, or an inner box, don’t rely on loose fill alone to stop two hard items meeting in transit.
- Double-box anything genuinely fragile or high-value: an inner box for the item, an outer box with cushioning between the two.
What this looks like in a dispute
A buyer reporting undisclosed damage isn’t automatically a claim against you, it depends on what the evidence shows. If your handover photo shows the item intact and properly packaged, and the damage clearly happened after it left you, that points to the carrier, not you, the buyer’s claim is against their carrier, and you’re still paid. If the photo shows inadequate packaging, or the damage is consistent with how it was packed rather than how it was carried, that’s a genuine dispute, and it’s resolved the same way every dispute is: you and the buyer are expected to sort it out directly, see the Terms of Service.