This past week I decided to sell some used stuff on Amazon. To my surprise 2 of the items sold the same day but with Amazon’s large cut I wanted to save money on shipping.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to pay the .70 cents for delivery confirmation (Tracking) but I also didn’t want to be told the items weren’t received. Then I read on the USPS site that tracking is .19 cents if electronically sent. But needed special approved software. After a search I realized it would cost more then it would save.
USPS does have online postage/labelcreation thru their Click and Ship but this is only for
- Express Mail®
- Priority Mail®
Those service are more expensive then the services below that are more commonly used for discount shipping.
- 1st Class
- Media Mail
- Parcel Post
USPS also has a down loadable software Called Shipping Assistant that is excellent and even allows live tracking, but does not include stamp printing on the mailing label. It does allow all mail methods though, including discounted shipping confirmation for .19. So, I can mail Media Mail DVDs or books and First Class coins. If you tell it the weight it prints it next to the label so you could affix postage stamps (lighter objects only) or meter with machine or at the post office counter.
I then discovered the free paypal service Multi Order Shipping while designed for eBay (It will integrate with eBay sales) you can also create an outside sale. Choose File Create New Orders. This gives you all shipping options and also prints just like Shipping Assistant but pays postage thru your free pay-pal account so no need to wait through the line at the post office.
I ended up selling just about everythingI didn’t want on Amazon, including an old Canon AE1 and earned about 300.00 in two weeks. Here is one small sale of an unused Queen DVD I had.
- My Amazon listing price 11.00
- shipping 2.98 (fixed by Amazon)
- total charged customer 13.98
- Less amazon Fees 3.44 = 10.54 paid me.
- Shipped 1st class cost 1.73 +.19 (tracking)=1.92
- total earnings =8.62
As you can see it’s not much but it was an unopened present so better then just sitting on a shelf. And waiting in a post office line to make 8.62 would really suck. So in the end I choose pay-pal for shipping.
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