Hi there,
Payton Moda makes these kind of posts in #TMC daily and one from few days ago really stuck out. It made me remember a few close calls I personally had shipping luxury watches over the years.
This is so true, not even kidding. If you’re shipping any other way you are taking an unbelievable risk. One lost watch that isn’t properly insured is enough to delete a month+ paycheck real quick. Everyone thinks it won’t happen to them until it does, it’s not fun.
IFS Inforsure (shipinforsure.com) has been our trusted shipping partner for as many years as I’ve been in the watch business. They’re the only company that’s stood the test of time and paid out when things go south. I vouch personally that they are the safest way to ship your watches and if you do any kind of watch trading online you need to open an account with them.
Before I tell you how to create a FREE Account, quick story.
There was an insider theft ring few years ago at Fedex’s Memphis hub. They would create a ‘hit list’ for address and names that are known watch dealers then target those packages. I’m not sure how many they successfully hit but I personally got hit TWICE and many of our watch dealing friends did too. 1 that was hit on a 20k package but he shipped it with a different insurance company that denied the claim over a technicality!
First thing to go missing for me was a panda Rolex Daytona. They opened investigation the same day and as soon as Fedex called it lost check was our account in 48 hours for the FULL insured amount (the amount we had it sold for not what we paid for it). No deductible or games, I was paid.
Shortly after the SAME crew hit a much bigger package of ours. This time it was a 6 figure full rose gold Audemars Piguet chronograph. Ship IFS does this thing where if a package of yours misses a check point they instantly flag it, start an investigation, and alert you. It’s actually wild how fast and proactive they are. I get notified that Fedex has lost contact with my package and that they’re on it. By the end of the day the CEO reaches out directly and tells me they FOUND the AP and how they did, it was insane.
There was a Fedex employee who was clocking out and the guard noticed that he was wearing a 100k+ full gold watch, gets suspicious, and puts him in holding till law enforcement came to take over. Long story short, that watch going missing was the straw that broke the camels back on that entire ring. Once they got search warrants and etc they found plenty other stolen packages INCLUDING MY ORIGINAL LOST DAYTONA! But by then I was paid out and watch was worth a lot less so I just let them keep it lol.
If we shipped either of those packages any other way, we’d be out 150k and FedEx would give us an apology + what? refund us shipping? SHIPIFS having that kind of gravitas is what makes them the absolute gold standard in the watch shipping and insurance space.
This isn’t news for most of you though, most of you reading this have a ShipIFS account but for those who don’t…
Here’s how to get a Free SHIP IFS account
Send an email to :
(Or click that email and it’ll automatically prefill everything out for you)
Subject line - “Moda New account”
Body: put if you’re collector or dealer with resale licenses and how many packages you might be shipping a year. You can be a collector who does 1 a year or a full time dealer doing 40 packages a day.
Yes they also do international too but that requires an EIN. Collectors can ship within USA without having a jewelry business though.
We have pre-negotiated the rates for you already, you’re going to pay less to insure and ship most watches than it costs to overnight a car title (serious).
If you’re a current ShipIFS account holder, join their Facebook group IFS Inforsure Inc. They have some cool perks in their like how to get free label paper, other supplies, and cheap label printers.