Shipping and receiving gifts safely

The one rule

Your home address never touches a fan, a wishlist, a shipping label or a return slip. Not once, not for a trusted regular, not for a gift too good to pass up. Every other piece of advice in this guide follows from that.

Receiving gifts

Fans like sending things, and gifts can be a meaningful part of the relationship. The risk is entirely in the delivery address.

• Use a PO box, a private mailbox service, or a parcel locker. A mailbox service with a street address accepts couriers that will not deliver to a PO box.
• Register the mailbox under your stage name or business name if the provider allows it, and check what appears on any receipts or notifications.
• Use a wishlist service designed to hide the recipient's address from the buyer. Read the current privacy terms yourself; features change. Some mainstream wishlists have revealed city or address details through order confirmations or shipping estimates, so test with a small order to yourself first.
• Gift cards for stores and digital gift cards avoid shipping entirely and are often the easiest option to offer.
• Say what you will and will not accept. Food, anything opened, anything that requires a signature from you by legal name, and anything whose tracking page shows your location are worth declining.

Treat a surprise parcel sent to your home, or anything that shows a fan knows your area, as a serious warning sign. See the guides on doxxing and stalkers.

Sending items to buyers

Signed prints, worn items and small merchandise sell well. Shipping them exposes your address through the return label unless you plan for it.

• Use your mailbox service's address as the return address. Never leave it blank, because undeliverable parcels get opened or returned to whatever sender the carrier can work out.
• Print labels at home or through a shipping app so you are not standing at a counter giving your details.
• Keep packaging plain. No stage name on the outside, no stickers, nothing that announces what it is to a buyer's housemate or mail carrier.
• Confirm the buyer's address through the platform you sold on, not a text message, and keep a record of what you sent and when in case of a dispute.
• Know your local rules on posting used personal items. Some carriers and countries restrict them. Pack them clean, sealed, and labelled honestly where labels are required.

Payment for items

Take payment before shipping, through one of your payment links or with credits, and treat the order like any other sale. Do not ship against a promise. Keep gifts and sales separate in your records, because they are usually treated differently for tax, and ask an accountant how gifts are treated where you live.