Shipping troubles

[Cricket]

I'm pretty new at ebay - still trying to figure things out. I've bought a few things, and had good success. Never had any issues with shipping, or the quality of the product, etc. I recently bought a little dress for my daughter - nothing expensive, I think it was $8. I paid with paypal, item was shipped, and the package arrived today, opened and empty. I was pretty disappointed. I didn't purchase shipping insurance for it, because it was such a small amount. Do I have any options, or is that just "one of those things"? BTW - I don't think the seller cheated me. I think it was stolen in shipping. Any suggestions?

[Phteven]

I don't think there's much you can do. You should lodge a complaint with your local post office. You could also contact paypal. They have buyer protection but I don't know if it covers items lost in the mail.
I've got a dispute open with a seller at the moment about shipping but my seller actually has the item because it was returned to sender because the courier didn't bother leaving a card.

[alioops]

did the package appear tampered? if it look like they normally do i would say they sent an empty box, but if it looked like it had been taped and re taped i would suspect a dodgy postie/courier.

[Phteven]

If they sent an empty box it's easy enough to see - just look at the little printed label thingy that the post office puts on it and see wht it cost and how much it weighed.

[Cricket]

Thanks for the advice ladies! I am pretty sure she shipped it with the clothing inside - it looked like the envelope was carefully opened - steamed maybe?
How should I leave feedback? I intend to leave positive feedback, but I think if the seller had packaged it more carefully, this might not have happened. (It was just in a full sized envelope, no packing, no box, etc.) I feel that I should at least leave a comment saying that the item was stolen in shipping, so that if this happens more often with this seller, people will be warned. Should I maybe e-mail the seller to suggest more careful packaging next time?
What do you think?

[Phteven]

I think it's a good idea to leave something in feedback and contact her to let her know what happened.

[Pandora]

contact her first and explain what happened. Does your version of ebay have the new extended feedback where you rate out of 5 on different aspects of the transactio - thats where I would rate the shipping/packaging as poor, not necessarily in the comments

[Cricket]

Well, I e-mailed the seller to let her know what happened, and left positive feedback. We do have the five categories for feedback info, but the section was for shipping and handling rates, not quality. Shipping was quite inexpensive, but I guess that's why the package was so easy to open!
Anyways, thanks all, for your advice. I really appreciate it!