(This post contains some affiliate links, which means when you purchase an item I may receive a small commission – but I only make referrals for items I love or companies that I know offer great services and deals.)
One of the major hesitations that holds people back from reselling is the unknown shipping costs. This was true for me, when I started selling things online I would often underestimate how much an item would cost to ship. There are several ways to save money on shipping costs, and I am going to let you know some of my favorite shipping tips that I have learned over the years. One way to not undercharge on shipping is to weigh and pick out your shipping box ahead of time. By doing this, you can put in the specific item dimensions into your reselling platform (Etsy, eBay, Facebook Marketplace, etc.) and their system will automatically charge the purchaser for the cost of shipping. One thing that I like to do when I weigh items is that I always round up to the next ounce, or even add a few ounces to offset the cost of packaging. As a novice, do not offer free shipping, unless you have been doing this a while and know how much the item will cost to ship and you are okay with picking up the cost yourself.
I use a small food scale to weigh my small boxes (similar to this one), but for larger boxes I purchased this scale that has the screen readout to the side, because it is hard to read the weight with the smaller scale and there is a weight limit.
Another way to not undercharge on shipping is to get flat rate boxes from USPS. You can often pick them up at the USPS store, but if they do not have the size you are looking for you can order them for free from the USPS website. They have three sizes (large, medium and small). If your item fits in these boxes then the item ships for a flat rate. Flat rate shipping boxes are wonderful for shipping heavy, relatively small items. If your item is light and small you may save money by shipping the item in another box and weighing it. A lot of novices do not realize this, but if you ship in a flat rate box you have to purchase flat rate shipping, so it is smart to save other boxes if you do not want to use this service.
Another thing I did to help me scale my business was purchase a thermal printer. I used to spend a lot of time printing on paper and cutting and taping the paper to my boxes; but I saw several other resellers talking about thermal printers and how it saved them time and money on shipping and I finally gave in and bought one. What is a thermal label, you may wonder? Thermal labels are labels are the ones that you will often see on your boxes you receive from Amazon, Best Buy, Old Navy, etc. They are stickers that are printed using a special printer that uses heat. This saves money time and money because you do not have to purchase ink and paper, and you can quickly print off the labels and stick them on the box (instead of manually cutting them out and sticking them on the package). I purchased my label printer and immediately regretted not purchasing it sooner. My sister likes to sell items online too and she told me she didn’t want to purchase a thermal label printer because she was scared the ink would bleed, so to test if it would do that or not but I submerged the label under water for several minutes and showed her that it did not bleed. In fact, it holds an advantage over the inkjet printers for the paper bleeding. The only thing you have to worry about with thermal printers is the heat print does not last for years, similar to how your receipts will fade over time or if in direct sunlight for weeks (receipts are printed in a similar manner using heat to imprint on the pages). After reading reviews I purchased a Rollo Printer and these labels, but a lot of people like other brands - I just picked the one that fit the price point that I wanted and had good reviews. The printer I purchase has since sold out, but they have this newer model which has WiFi (mine does not) and I will be replacing mine with the newer model soon.
Another item I am really happy I purchased and helps me save a lot of time with shipping is this Packing Tape Dispenser. It is a lot easier for me to cut packing tape using this dispenser, instead of a moving box dispenser that I used to use. It is another “I wish I bought this sooner” item. This is the tape I use and this is the dispenser:
Additionally, I save a lot of money purchasing my shipping from PirateShip.com verses purchasing directly from USPS or UPS. Pirateship will often give me a 20-30% discount on the cost of shipping, which I wish I would have known when I first started selling online. I wasted a lot of time and money purchasing the shipping from USPS directly and often there was a line. This made me not want to list and ship items online, because of the time and energy spent shipping items. This is not a referral link for Pirateship and I get nothing from recommending them to you, other than truly letting you know that I LOVE using their service because you can quickly compare rates between UPS and USPS and you can save a large percentage on shipping costs using them. Sometimes I have found that shipping with UPS saves me a lot more money than shipping with USPS, especially when I am shipping larger items or heaver items that will not fit in a flat rate box. Pirateship lets me easily price compare between the two companies. Another feature I like about Pirateship is that they will create a scan sheet for you to take to USPS. This is important, because during the pandemic a lot of resellers did not manually scan in their packages (they just dropped them off) and USPS never did the initial scan. When they packages arrived late (or not at all) customers on Etsy and eBay automatically got refunded, much to many resellers’ dismay. If they had done the initial scan then they would have proof that it was a mail carrier issue and that the item was on the way. Usually if you go to the post office and you only have 1-3 items you are shipping the mail clerk does not mind scanning them, but I sometimes have 10-20 items I am shipping out, and even 75-100 items at a time during busy times. A scan sheet has all of the barcodes linked to one barcode, so if the mail carrier scans it the system will automatically show that you have shipped your items and will have the initial check-in scan.
Finally, I sell a lot of items that are the same size, and have found that buying shipping supplies from Amazon is often the best deal, with the exception of bubble wrap and packing paper, I have found the best deals at a home improvement store such as Home Depot or Lowe’s.
I hope this helps - let me know if you have any questions 😊.
Charlotte