How do you ship your stuff?

[duckxtales]

hi people..

i sell health products, not the prescription kind. I use paypal as my cc merchant and currently i use stamps.com to ship my stuff. I know paypal has their own integrated shipping thing. And I know USPS.com has their own too. Right now i'm paying stamps.com $20 a month, but im thinking about switching to the integrated shipping thing within paypal.

I'm curious to how do all of you guys do it? Would i be saving more if i switch over to paypal one?

[Essex_boy]

If you ship fairly heavy items I dont think PP has enough shipping charge options, from what I can recall.

Better off adding a true cart like Mals-e.com

[duckxtales]

i just paid for agroga cart.. what do you think of it?

[RedWolf]

I use the usps.com system since almost all my stuff goes out Priority Mail. It lets you print the postage and it looks like as of today or yesterday also buy up to $200 insurance through the website. If you need more insurance, you need to get the insurance over the counter at the post office. I have just started using UPS more on my higher insurance shipping because it is much much cheaper for the insurance. On an $800 package UPS is less than $3 for the insuance and USPS wants almost $10.

[JonR28]

USPS through Endicia is awesome. I can put my logo right on the shipping label. and print them out SUPER fast!

You can find labels on ebay for like $5 for 6,000! It also handles customs forms for international orders for me! It even emails my customers their tracking information. I adore Endica and USPS. $3.75 to ship up to 1lbs. all over the country in less than 3 days!

[duckxtales]

wat's endica? isn't priority suppose to be $3.85?

why ship priority when you can ship first class for alot cheaper and it arrives at about the same time and you even get delivery confirmation too...

[Shannon Moore]

Shipping costs vary depending on where you do it.

Example: When I use a local retail shipping place (I think it's a franchise), their markup makes USPS Priority Mail for a 12 oz. item cost $4.81.

[RedWolf]

why ship priority when you can ship first class for alot cheaper and it arrives at about the same time and you even get delivery confirmation too...

For me it is efficiency. Time is money after all, and shipping Priority Mail over First Class Mail saves me both. Every month, I get several packs of free shipping boxes delivered to my door automatically (set up a standing order with USPS). These go in the shipping room in a stack by the bubble wrap roll. To ship all I have to do is fold up the box, wrap the item invoice/pormotional flyers etc in a pice of bubble wrap and slide it into the box and seal the self adhesive flap, slap the label on the box and move to the next one. Total time since all the boxes are the same maybe a minute each. The labels are printed out from the USPS website where I can have the whole shippment charged to my business credit card. I get free delivery confirmation with this. So over all I am not paying much more than the First Class cost and am gettign free supplies that make shipping effiecient. Then there is the fact that the customer is more impressed with Priority Mail than standard mail so there is that advantage.

[hfwd]

We ship by UPS because of the tracking capability - lately, we're looking into DHL because they're cheaper. Any thoughts?

We've shipped by postal domestically before, but had trouble claiming the insurance when the package was lost - that's why we never bother to buy the insurance anymore ...

[SkyDog]

I use fedex, you can save 10% by signing up online, or call an account rep if you have a volume and they'll give you a rate. + they have an API you can integrate with any app, miles ahead of UPS that has a few select partners, ie paypal-ebay.

[Rugles]

UPS, FedEx, Purolator and Postal. Plus various trucking companies for pallets through negotiated rates or freightquote.

[RedWolf]

My problem with FedEx is that they have a lot more restrictions on what you can ship insured. They have a $500 limit on jewelry for Express and $100 limit for Ground. You can sign up for an exemption for the Express service, but not for the ground so it is not real useful for me. That is why UPS gets most of my shipments over $200 and USPS is used for the smaller shipments.

[Rugles]

We had lots of problems with Fed Ex Ground. Completely different than the Express division. You get what you pay for, not much.