In general, for low cost items, Delivery Conformation is really just an added expense. My recommendation is that for any item selling for over $20 or so, use Delivery Conformation to ensure that your customer receives their product.
If you are using the USPS to ship your products, Delivery Conformation becomes especially important. Even though you may receive a tracking number for items shipped without Delivery Conformation, this number will really only indicate that the item is scheduled for pickup at the shipper’s address, or that the item has been picked up and is on its way. There is no way to tell where on route the item actually is. Even if you use the USPS Delivery Conformation, you are not provided with a tracking mechanism. Basically all you can do is confirm that the item was delivered to someone at the address you shipped it to.
If you want to provide additional visibility to your customer, ship using UPS (United Parcel Service), FEDEX (Federal Express), or DHL. You’ll be provided with a tracking number that can be used to locate your package along its route from your location to your customer’s. For international shipment, the last location for tracking may actually be the Custom’s office (this is country dependant). Check with your shipper to determine just how far into the shipping process your package will be tracked.
One more thing about tracking your shipment. If the shipper’s website says that the package left your location, arrived at a distribution site, was delivered to the next distribution site, and was finally loaded on a truck to be taken to your location, does that mean that all of those things actually happened? Nope. Take for instance the time immediately following Hurricane Katrina. One of the major distribution points was in Memphis, TN for UPS. We had ordered an item from a business near the middle of the state of Texas. The tracking information indicated that the item left Texas, arrived in Memphis, left Memphis, arrived in Kansas City, was put on a truck in Kansas City for local delivery, and then was recalled to be returned to the shipper due to a natural disaster. When I called the UPS help center to find out what natural disaster had occurred in Kansas City that would cause them to take a package off of a truck on its way to my house and ship it all the way back to Texas, I got no real answer (UPS now out sources their help desk so these folks don’t have a clue what is really going on). When I called a friend who is a local manager working for UPS I learned that UPS (and other shippers) pre-enter much of the tracking information data. While the package had arrived in Kansas City, it never made it to a local delivery truck. It turns out that most of the packages coming from the Hurricane areas were diverted from their normal distribution centers to Kansas City. They expected the Kansas City office to sort through everything and return any damaged packages, as well as take on the additional work of other distribution centers. The Kansas City office opted to return EVERYTHING (damaged and undamaged) to the original shippers and let them sort through their stuff.
This is kind of a extreme example, ripped from the headlines, used to make a point about tracking your packages. Just because the tracking info says that something happened, does not mean that it did. Remember, information is pre-entered by the distribution centers to save time and ensure that you see progress on the shipment of your package.