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Go To Great Panes, Kathryn Maloney ©2009
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If you are selling online you’ll need to learn about shipping your goods. It can seem overwhelming–especially international shipping–but with a little practice you’ll get the hang of it in no time.
Below are links to all the vital shipping tips on the blog, this page will be updated when more are added. To get notices when new posts are made in general, feel free to subscribe to our blog using the links on the left.
For the most part these posts are geared toward folks shipping from the US. Links with a purple asterisk at the end contain info that should be helpful to folks shipping from outside the US too.
The best piece of advice I have is to invest in a scale so you can both estimate and ship from home. It may seem like an investment when you are first starting out, but the hassle it saves you is soooo worth the $30-ish you’ll spend on it.
So far I only have information about the US Postal Service as it is the most commonly used and most economic for the majority of the packages folks seem to ship. If you are shipping oversized items or very heavy items Fed Ex or UPS will sometimes be a better deal.
| Shipping 101: The basics |
| Shipping: Service Choices: First Class Mail, Priority… |
| Getting a Handle on International Shipping: Using First Class International makes setting your rates easy! |
| USPS Shipping Zone Tool: You’ll need this to figure out Priority Mail rates when using the USPS Shipping Calculator. |
| Priority Mail: by Weight or Flat Rate? Often shipping by weight is a much better deal! |
| Shipping Insurance: You can insure international First Class Mail! Information on third-party insurance companies. |
| Missing package? Package missing its contents? Find out what to do about it here. |
| Getting a PO Box–Protect your personal info. It may be rare to be harassed, but better safe than sorry. |
| How Etsy’s “Secondary Shipping” works* Many sellers have a hard time figuring out how to set up their Secondary Shipping. |
| Figuring Out Your Secondary Shipping* Getting accurate secondary shipping rates doesn’t have to be difficult. |
| Shipping Labels Through Paypal: Once you start shipping from home, you’ll never want to go back to standing on lines at the PO. |
| PP Shipping 2: Shipping Through Paypal–Regardless of How the Customer Paid Info for creating labels for items paid for by check or money order, or even for just sending gifts to friends & family… |
| International First-Class: Print Labels From Your Computer Paypal doesn’t offer them, but if you have PC, you can still have nice printed labels for your International First Class Mail packages. (Sorry, not available for Macs.) |
| Do I need a customs form?* The short answer is: You need a customs form if your package has “potentially dutiable contents”. Click this post’s link for the long answer and the links to the page on the USPS website where you can see this for yourself. |
| International Shipping: Prohibited & Restricted Items |
| Marking Your Package “Gift” on the Customs Form: Don’t do it unless you are sending a gift to someone you know. |
*Helpful to folks shipping from outside the US too.
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