How do i cut my shipping expense

[meduseld]

Hi, how do I cut my shipping expense? Right now it about 35% of my sales. I do use a scale but it stills seems like I end up paying for some of the shipping. Any suggestions? 

[gailena]

You need to give a little more information about your situation if you want a helpful answer

[nobody*s_perfect]

When you set up the shipping calculator, always round up the weight.  2 pounds 2 ounces costs the same postage as 3 pounds.

For packages up to 15.99 ounces, use First Class package postage.

If you purchase your postage online, such as through eBay, you will get a discount on all postage except Media Mail.  The shipping calculator is set by default to charge buyers for the retail price (what you'd pay at the Post Office counter), so you should not be paying more for postage than what the buyers paid to you.

Even with all those strategies, a package that weighs over 1 pound is going to cost at least $7 to ship, so if you're selling items for $15 or $20, then postage will inevitably be a significant percentage of the item price.

As noted in the other post, if you want specific suggestions you'll have to provide specifics such as a situation where you paid more than the buyer paid you (both ZIP Codes, both exact prices, package weight, and services used).

[7606dennis]

Since your items are showing as being located in three different countries and you are registered as being in the US, I don't find it hard to believe that you're having a problem with high shipping costs.  If you're located in the US, domestic first class package rates are probably the best that you can expect for items located in the US being shipped to locations in the US.  However, those located in outside of the US, intentional shipping is expensive and with the pandemic, unreliable.  

[martin2001]

If you are in US and sell internationally, for packages up to 4 lbs use pirateship.com. Their prices are 30-40% cheaper than ebay's or stamps.com's. The account is free, you need to ask them to sign you up for "simple international rate." It's a formality, I don't know why one has to go through it.

[orangehound]

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@meduseld wrote:

Hi, how do I cut my shipping expense? Right now it about 35% of my sales. I do use a scale but it stills seems like I end up paying for some of the shipping. Any suggestions? 

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My top two tips to have postage as a smaller percentage of sales:

1. List more expensive items, and items that are lighter weight ... avoid anything under $20 that is one-of-a-kind.
2. Set up a routing table to penalize shipping to far-away zones, or to discourage shipping to those zones.  If your item is a hot seller, there is no need to have it selling to zones 6-9.   For example, you can have free shipping to zones 1-5, with $45 shipping to zones 6-9 ... or free to zones 1-4, 6.95 to zone 5-6 and 14.95 to zones 7-9.
3.