Ideas: FS/FT Shippers, Ebayers!

[nta]

Hey guys, I do a little bit of ebay on the side, about 20-30 boxes a month, sometimes more sometimes less. USPS priority provides free boxes, but their lines are a BIATCH. It's 30 minutes minimum. For those of you who ship this kind of volume or more, Please let us in on your shipping techniques. From shipping materials (where do you get cheap boxes, etc.) to shipping couriers (UPS, FEDEX)? Thanks for your inputs.

 

[charliebrown]

Go to the USPS website and print your own labels with postage. Then your mailman can pick up the package.

You can also use stamps.com to print your own postage.

I agree - waiting in line at the PO is a big waste of time.

 

[nta]

How do you go about having the mailman pick up the packages? Our mailbox is at a neutral location about 100ft from the house and so should i leave a note for him to come and pick up the package?

 

[amnesiac]

Originally posted by: nta
How do you go about having the mailman pick up the packages? Our mailbox is at a neutral location about 100ft from the house and so should i leave a note for him to come and pick up the package?

If you trust your neighborhood you can leave the packages near the outgoing mail box and the mailman should pick them up.
Sometimes they require you to give all boxes >1lb to a clerk though.

FedEx and UPS provide most mailing materials except larger boxes.. usually I just hoard boxes from other items, stuff I've ordered, or from moving and use those.

 

[PsychoAndy]

Order a box full of boxes from USPS.

And if you're really lazy, UPS will come pick up your crap for somewhere around 10 bucks, or something like that.

 

[charliebrown]

Originally posted by: nta
How do you go about having the mailman pick up the packages? Our mailbox is at a neutral location about 100ft from the house and so should i leave a note for him to come and pick up the package?

Well - if you have the postage already attached to the packages with a computer printed label, you can drop the packages off at the post office without waiting in line - ask a clerk where the drop off is.

When I have a bunch of packages, I take them to the back loading dock of the PO and hand them to a worker there. Its easy and fast.

 

[sassy1]

Actually UPS will do on-call pickups for Next Day and 2nd Day air packages for free, or you can have a daily pickup plan that ranges from $7-16 per week service charge depending on your shipping volume. I ship 15-30 packages per week so I have the daily service and order some of my supplies from them, simply because they have good prices on padded envelopes and small boxes (I sell jewelry, for the most part).

I've used all the major carriers and like UPS best, although I do have a few clients that I ship to via USPS.

By far the most VITAL shipping tool that I have is a modified USB CueCat scanner 🙂 Makes scanning those barcodes a breeze when I'm letting my buyers know their tracking or delivery confirmation numbers, and I can input the numbers into my spreadsheet for bookkeeping along with all my other auction/sale info 🙂 I just ordered three more to give to a few friends to help them get their home-based businesses organized, goodness knows I wish I'd had one three years ago when I started all this!

For those of you that use PayPal and use their UPS option to ship - if you opt to use UPS's daily pickup service you'll need to call UPS with your account information to upgrade your account and schedule the pickups. This will entitle you to their lower business rates, which WILL be reflected when you do the click and ship bit through PayPal. You don't have to use the WorldShip software they'll send you, and in fact it's better if you don't, so that the payment for the shipping will be deducted from your PayPal account rather than billed directly to you on a NET30 basis.

Just my .02 😀

Sassy

 

[nta]

Thanks for your input guys. Here's some info for those of you who ship USPS with printed barcodes. I wasn't sure about how it works so I asked to talk to an e-commerce expert at the my PO. THe guy was extremely helpful. But here's the bad news. You still have to GO to the post office and WAIT inline. Because if you don't , you will not have the delivery confirmation, this is crucial if the bidder says he never recieved it or soemthing like that. So basically by printing the label off, you just save the Clerk time for not having to weigh the item and put on postage. If i did not wait, then the product would've left without DC. So the online thing is basically of no time savings.

 

[nta]

where does one fine a good scale to weigh the boxes before shipping?

 

[sassy1]

Originally posted by: nta
where does one fine a good scale to weigh the boxes before shipping?

If you can tolerate all the nonsense in his listings there's an eBay seller who has every possible scale you can imagine. I got my gem scale from him ages ago and it's never failed me, he sells the My Weigh brand, which is just about the best there is, at one time I looked into being a distributor for the company before my business started keeping me too busy 🙂

Old Willknott is a rather odd duck, his listings are VERY colorfully worded, but he's got excellent, nearly wholesale prices and he's a super fast shipper who really stands behind the items he sells.

BTW, if you're going to ship USPS use the "print your shipping labels online" thingy at the USPS.com website and you'll get your delivery confirmation automatically without having to stand in line at the PO, because it's entered into the system when you print the label 🙂

Sassy

 

[ptyes]

I hate P.O. lines, and use UPS exclusivly, if the P.O. wasn't so cheap... I usually use my UPS account for expensive things, heavy things, and things that need to get palces fast.