Learn How to Ship Stuff
Today we are going to teach you how to ship everything you sell online! This article applies to clothing, body care, makeup and accessories but you can use this advice for pretty much any kind of merchandise. Let's begin!
We have divided this article into sections:
Part 2: How to Ship SMALL THINGS
Part 3: How to Ship MEDIUM THINGS
Part 4: How to Ship LARGE THINGS
Part 6: How to Get the Cheapest Rates - What You're NOT Doing!
Part 7: Why We Don't Use SHIP SAVER Programs
First you absolutely have to have a good scale. The “free” scales you get when you sign up for a postage program suck. If your scale is off by only 1 ounce you will be over paying for postage or, worse, underpaying and your buyers will get billed the difference… eek!
Here’s a couple scales that are really good and worth the money:
Next, you want to buy a 10 pound (or 20 pound) weight. The reason is because you want to check your scale on a regular basis and you know a 10 pound weight is exactly 10 pounds. Don’t use a 5 pound weight because it is possible for the scale to weigh 5 pounds correctly but not accurately calculate 10. I know, it’s weird, but trust me on this one.
Be sure to check your scale weekly. It’s a good “Monday Task” before you ship all of the weekend orders.
You also REALLY REALLY need to buy a thermal printer. Even though it will cost $60 today, it will save you a ton of money, time and supplies within 2 months.
Here’s why: If you plan to print your mailing labels on regular pc paper you have to pay for paper and ink. Then you have to pay for tape. You also spend time taping it to the box. Plus, watching a mailing label print is worse than watching paint dry!
A thermal printer doesn’t need ink. Yes, I said it doesn’t need ink. It “prints” directly onto the sticker. Best of all, it prints in literally a half-second and you don’t have to fuss with paper jams. After you buy your thermal printer all you will need to buy is the sticker labels. We have been using the same thermal printer for years and it’s never had an issue. We get all of our labels off Amazon.
PART 2: HOW TO SHIP SMALL THINGS
Tiny Things - Earrings, a kids tank top, a pair of socks, a panty or similar.
The cheapest way to ship these is via First Class Mail, providing it weighs under 15 ounces (16 ounces is 1 pound).
The best way to ship these items is in a mailer.
Best types of poly mailers for little things:
If the small thing is fragile you have two options:
- Wrap it in bubble wrap, tape it and put it in a poly or bubble mailer.
- Put it in a small box. Small boxes are pretty cheap on Amazon. In fact, a small box might be cheaper than bubble wrap + tape + mailer + time
Small things that weigh 16 ounces or more
USPS “Free” Small Flat Rate Mailer. Remember VHS tapes? That’s what size this box is.
USPS raises the price on all of their "free" supplies every year (sometimes it increases twice in a single year). When we first started shipping the Small Flat Rate was around $5.15. Now the price is up to $7.63 (as of April 2020). However, $7.63 is still cheaper than other options if your item can fit in the Small Flat Rate and if it weighs over 1 pound. Note: The max weight for this little box used to be 4 pounds. I assume it's probably the same today.
If your small item is too big for the Small Flat Rate box, consider it to be a Medium item.
Medium things - A couple womens sweaters, 2 pair of mens jeans, 2 hoodies, a kids outfit on a hanger, etc. If the medium size thing weighs under 15 ounces you should still be able to ship it first class. But we are going to assume that these medium things weigh 1-4 pounds, but under 20 pounds.
“Free” USPS Bubble Mailer. If it fits, it ships for around $7.70 anywhere in the USA. Good luck fitting 2 pairs of jeans in here. But it's a good thing to have a few on hand because sometimes you can use 'em.
A Poly Mailer via USPS Priority or USPS Cubic - Also Known as “Soft Pack” - burn the phrase “soft pack” into your brain because this is insanely important and we will be discussing it thoroughly in a little bit. REALLY, SUPER, MEGA, IMPORTANT because you are probably doing it wrong and therefore throwing away money! This is what you SHOULD be using for almost everything you ship. Keep reading...
A Box: we use Home Depot boxes because they are fantastic quality and cheaper than Amazon. These come in a variety of sizes. If you want to order through Home Depot, here is how you do it TO GET A DISCOUNT::
First sign up for Mr. Rebates.com. This will give you 1-3% cash back on every home depot purchase. Then, in Mr Rebates, click the link for Home Depot. Now buy your boxes.
When buying your boxes, pay VERY CLOSE ATTENTION to the prices. You ALWAYS want to buy a full “bundle”!!! A bundle is ALWAYS cheaper per piece than buying individuals!
“Free” USPS Medium Flat Rate Box - As you may notice, whenever I talk about USPS supplies I say “Free”, because it technically *is* “free” but it almost always costs more to ship, therefore the “free” supplies costs more in the end. I am totally NOT a fan of these. They’re too small for most things and too roomy for small things. The only time these are truly valuable is if the item is super heavy and small; like a 25-pound workout weight or literally bricks.
Every year USPS raises the shipping cost in these flat rates. Last I checked it was around $13 to ship anywhere in the USA in this box. BUT if what you are shipping can fit in this box, it is most likely cheaper to ship in the poly mailer unless you are sending it all the way across the USA (New York to California or Maine to Washington). I encourage you to grab a couple of these from the post office because they are free, but don’t make this your main shipping box… unless you sell 10” pieces of granite rock or 9”x9” steel chunks.
Regional Boxes - in my opinion these work best if you are centrally located in the USA. Since we are in Michigan, we aren’t really surrounded by other states (we are surrounded by lakes) so we have few opportunities to utilize these boxes. However we order aquarium supplies from South Carolina and they ship in them all the time. So these boxes must be good for SC to us in MI. Above and beyond telling you that much, I really don’t have any more info for you.
Larger Things - Three Pairs of jeans, a winter coat (not a parka), three or four mens sweaters…. Stuff that probably weighs over 4 pounds, yet isn't ginormous.
Large Flat Rate - despite the name, these boxes aren’t large at all. For the most part they CAN hold around 20 pieces of 8.4oz body care (which we will discuss more shortly)
Cubic Pricing (Priority Mail) - This is the absolute best way to ship most things BUT you have to sell enough inventory to access cubic pricing AND you have to merchandise that is small enough to ship via Cubic. Here’s the catch with Cubic:
It must ship in a poly mailer (this is also called “Soft Pack”... remember how I told you to burn this word into your brain?)
The mailer must measure 18 x18 or less BEFORE you put stuff in it. So the biggest size poly you can buy is 18 x 18.
It must weigh under 20 pounds
If you use a postage program and if you qualify for Cubic rates, you will be able to ship anything that meets the above criteria for $9 - $15 inside the USA. Again, if you are centrally located in the USA you’re going to get the best rates. If you are on a coast or edge you are going to have some higher-priced parcels and some lower, which will probably ultimately end up averaging around $11 per order. WE ARE GOING TO DISCUSS MORE SOFT PACK INFO IN A FEW MINUTES... MEGA, MEGA, MEGA IMPORTANT. Keep reading because you're doing a great job so far!
Ground / Parcel Post - USPS used to call it “parcel post” but they now call it “ground”.
A box via Priority or Ground / Parcel Post. Maybe it's just because we are located in Michigan, but for us, Priority Mail and Parcel Post / Ground often come to the same price but ground USED TO BE almost always several dollars cheaper than Priority Mail. The downside of Ground is that it can take 3x longer than Priority. Priority is usually around 3 days, whereas it is not uncommon for Ground to take 7 to 10. However, not every buyer is in a massive rush to get their goodies so a lot of people are fine with it taking extra time if it means they can save money on shipping.
A lot of people make a HUGE mistake when it comes to shipping; they automatically put it in a box then measure the box and input the box dimensions into the postage program. NO! NO! NO! NOOOOOO!! STOP IT NOW! All postage programs *SHOULD* also have a “soft pack” AKA “poly mailer” option!! You want to always FIRST check the soft pack rate! It is almost ALWAYS cheaper because USPS can fit more Soft Packs onto one truck than boxes.
If your postage program does not offer soft pack rates, GET RID OF IT! There’s so many postage programs out there in 2020 that there is no need to “settle” for a crappy program that forces you to ship in a box!
When you ship in boxes you are measuring 3 dimensions: L x W x H.
When you ship soft pack you measure only 2 dimensions: L x W because there is no H because a bag is like 1 millimeter high. It’s a bag for Petes Sake.
Ok so now that you know that, when shipping Soft Pack you measure the bag BEFORE you put stuff in it. That means you measure LxW when the bag is laid flat.
DO NOT SHIP SOFT PACKS LIKE BOXES. If your postage program has a Soft Pack option, it should only be asking you to provide two dimensions. If it’s asking you for the Height IT IS CHARGING YOU FOR A BOX. Again, if you are not able to switch to “soft pack” then get rid of your postage program TODAY. Don’t wait. Do it NOW. You are throwing away money!