I sell from Canada, and deal with Canada Post's vastly different shipping rates.
It costs me 85 cents to send a 30gm/2cm thick item across the country without tracking.
It would cost me $15.49 to ship the same item Regular Parcel, the cheapest rate with tracking.
In the past month, I've only shipped about 10% with any sort of tracking. No problems from buyers. Most were bulky and required parcel shipping. One or two were above my $100 comfort zone and went tracked even though they were sold with Free Shipping*.
The demand for tracking is twofold.
- American buyers expect it.
- EBay makes it a metric for Top Rated Seller for US sellers. (EBay understands that USPS is almost the lowest shipping costs out there and USPS tracking is incredibly cheap.)
For 1.) USPS is also very fast and efficient. The chances of your shipment taking more than five business days to get anywhere in the mainland US are slight.
If you are in a location from which shipping is slow, you can extend your shipping time from one day (preferred) to two or three days, allowing your shipment to get to the nearest postal hub.
For 2.) Top Rated Seller has some advantages in fees, but if you spend the money you save on unnecessarily expensive shipping, what's the point?
I wouldn't want to have to go to the post office every time I need postage.
Umm- you can also buy pregummed prepaid labels anytime you are in the Post Office for future needs. Most people call these "stamps".
You can buy postage (if you mean stamps) on eBay. I sell it myself under another ID at a 20% discount from face value in counted packets and with free shipping. Most of mine are Canadian of course, although at the moment I do have a little US postage listed.
Or you can buy shipping labels through Paypal . Again I'm dealing with a different postal system, but I have CanadaPost/SnapShip services and Shippo services available to me.
There is also something called stamps.com. Again, I'm non-US.
With each sale, check a different possiblity. You are in a learning curve.
measure the weight of each item separately... WITH it's individual packaging?
Yes.
But you'll soon know how much each package type weighs.
My items are mostly unbreakable so I use poly envelopes, which are waterproof. Much more important to me.
I buy those on ebay from emailers.ca, who offer Free Shipping from Canada to Canada. Cheaper than the Chinese and faster. YMMV because; borders.
And remember each rate has a weight and dimensional variation.
Our Light Packet rates run from 0-30gm up to 200-500gm with four other rates in between.
The weight of a (poly) bubble envelope is 10gm.
You mentioned branding.
You may notice if you peek at my listings, that I have used some simple HTML coding that gives me a colour background for all my listings. Nothing fancy, but I think it does set me apart a bit.
That was free once I figured out how to do it and saved the coding in a desktop file. I just use the HTML tab on the Sell Your Item form Description section, plug in the coding and description as a cut and paste and also paste in the Terms of Sale.
I think it may be too long for current mobile shoppers, but I am old and set in my ways.
*Keep in mind that Free Shipping means the cost of shipping is included in the asking price.
