What Safe Shipping covers on a Reverb order

Before you start

• The order open in Reverb, with its sale price.
• The label source: Reverb's own label, or postage you bought.
• Your packing notes, because Safe Shipping carries packaging conditions.

Steps

1. Check the label source on the order

   In Reverb, open Orders and look at Shipping Details to see whether the order went out on a Reverb label or on a number you entered yourself.

   You should see either a Reverb label, or a Shipping Provider and number you added.

2. Read the sale price against Reverb's bands

   Compare the sale price with $1,500 and $10,000, the two figures Reverb uses for Safe Shipping.

   You should see whether Safe Shipping was compulsory, optional, or unavailable on that order.

3. Confirm the sale and the shipment are both on Reverb

   Check that the payment ran through Reverb and the tracking is on the order, which is what Reverb Protection turns on.

   You should see an order Reverb can see end to end: "record of both the payment and the shipment on Reverb".

4. Report a problem inside Reverb's window

   If the parcel is lost or damaged, contact Reverb within 7 days of delivery, or within 14 days of the anticipated delivery date.

   You should see a case opened inside the window Reverb documents.

5. File with the carrier when there is no Safe Shipping

   On an outside label, open the loss or damage claim with the carrier or insurer you bought it from.

   You should see a claim in your name, which is the only cover the shipment has.

If it goes wrong

Losing Safe Shipping is not losing Reverb Protection

These are two products. Reverb Protection needs the payment and the shipment recorded on Reverb, which an outside label satisfies. Safe Shipping is sold on a Reverb label and goes away with it.

Declining it moves the risk

Reverb writes that "if you decline Safe Shipping, you assume responsibility for any loss or damages" and that "your shipment does not carry protection from Reverb or the carrier".

The packaging conditions are strict

Reverb lists packaging exclusions on the Safe Shipping article. Read them before you pack rather than after a claim, because they decide whether a damaged instrument is covered at all.

What happens next

Above $10,000 the question answers itself: Reverb says neither Safe Shipping nor its labels are available at that price, so every high-value sale ships on your own postage. Between $1,500 and $10,000 a Reverb label carries Safe Shipping whether you want it or not. Below that band it is a choice, and the cost of choosing your own label is Safe Shipping alone.