Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-02-12, 18:53:
In the USA the post office provided flat rate shipping boxes for FREE and you can buy bubble wrap and a bag of packing peanuts at the UPS store and extra Large boxes. So boxing items up correctly so they will not be damaged or broken during shipping is not that difficult.
I do wish Americans would be more honest in selling items.
If it is Broken than tell the truth.
Not all eBay sellers are bad at shipping. I have shipped hundreds of packages... probably closer to or over a thousand at this point and have never had a single item get damaged in shipping. Even had a couple different packages get shipped overseas and then come back to me unopened and they were still in just as good of shape as they were when I sent them.
I have received a good number of poorly packaged items and a couple scammy sellers.. not just in the USA, but from abroad as well.
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Those "free" flat rate boxes are not really "free" unless you are shipping heavy items. You pay a crazy amount to ship light items when using flat rate boxes.
Buying boxes and other packing supplies at any of the retail shipping stores is plain ingnorant. $19.99 for a small roll of bubble wrap... yeah right. I can buy 4x large rolls off of Amazon for less than $30.
Packing peanuts and box prices are the same. I am not going to pay some stupid high amount.. like $4 minimum for a small box when I can order shipping boxes from a local ULine reseller for around 50c per box.
Adding in the packing materials and shipping, I am generally under $6 shipping cost total for USPS first class mail (up to 15 ounces). If I were to buy boxes and other packing materials in a retail shipping store, I would be running close to $10 just for shipping supplies for a small package.
Above that to a not too heavy or large package, USPS priority is the way to go.
For larger and really heavy shipments, Fedex Ground is the cheapest.
Paying for shipping through eBay or Paypal is going to be the cheapest to ship things as you are getting either the online rate or eBay's negotiated rates. NEVER EVER pay retail shipping cost. It is a huge waste of money.
So what if you have to purchase a small electronic scale. The cheap ~$20 one I bought reads about 0.1 ounce different then the USPS scales read. It has paid for itself many times over.
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Tips for shipping.
1. When shipping, NEVER use those dumb clear plastic shipping pouches. If you do, you have a good chance of the package either not making it there because the pouch will get damaged or opened.
2. Package well enough so that your package can survive a fairly large drop without damaging the item you are shipping. Simply throwing in some bubbles, peanuts, or newspaper in the box is not good enough. The items being shipped should have enough packing to not move around at all. Do not use packing material that can smash down, especially for heavy items. Packing peanuts to fill space in addition to wrapping items in bubble-wrap is just fine for lighter packages.
3. Depending on the size of the box, there is a different amount of taping that needs to be done.
a. Small boxes - single line of tape for top and bottom of the box. Then on the bottom also run tape longways along the edge where the flaps are. (So you have a full line of tape holding the entire edges of the flaps down). Then run another line of tape across the side of the box where you folded over the tape so that the corners of the fold are held in place.
b. For large boxes, you also want to do the same as the small boxes on the top and also re-enforce the seam where it is on the one corner of the box.
4. Print your own shipping labels. I print on plain paper and then tape to the box with clear packing tape. 3 strips of tape with each strip slightly overlapping the previous strip of tape. On smaller boxes, the tape should go all the way across the box longways to also help hold the box closed. The 3 strips are in addition to the tape already holding the box closed.
5. Use a laser printer - inkjet printers are a waste of money.
6. You can print both the packing slip and shipping label on the same piece of paper. I print the packing slip in color and then put the paper back in the printer and print the shipping label in b/w. You just need to know what orientation the paper needs to be in for the shipping label to not print over the packing slip.
7. The tape I use is the super thin stuff that is available at Walmart in 4-pack rolls. No need whatsoever to spend extra money on the thicker tape unless you are shipping very, very, very heavy items. Even then, if you follow how I tape stuff up above in step 3, it is not even needed then.
