disneyshopper
- It does not appear you are a Top Rated seller yet so eBay is going to give you commercial rates & $50 insurance. When you are Top Rated seller eBay gives you $100 insurance and commercial rates less 3%.
- You can signup for an account at pirateship, an authorized eBay label provider, and get commercial pricing with $100 insurance. You also get cubic pricing, which is special priority mail pricing for smaller sized items that may be cheaper than regular prioirity mail or flat rate priority mail. It would make more sense for you to use pirateship than eBay or PayPal's labels until you are Top Rated. You can import your eBay orders there and the tracking numbers are automatically uploaded to eBay. There is no charge to use pirateship. You will still pay eBay its 10% FVF fee on shipping but you get more insurance and cubic pricing. The label printing process is a lot easier than eBay's dysfunctional new label system.
- eBay claims to not charge for shipping labels but it charges a 10% FVF on all shipping so eBay's claim that it does not charge for shipping labels is like a deflated balloon. What eBay is doing for Top Rated sellers is simply rebating 3% of the 10% FVF fee they charge for shipping so make people think they are getting a deal when they should not be charging the 10% FVF on shipping ot begin with. I and others have not uncovered any evidence so far that eBay is actually obtaining special rates from USPS below commercial pricing.
- eBay does not provide the cheapest shipping rates for online selling! If I am printing labels on pirateship for items I sold off my own website and not eBay I don't pay anybody a 10% FVF fee on my shipping thus shipping costs on my website are cheaper than eBay.
- Download your label as a pdf as it usually can be easily resized.
- The cheapest way to print labels is use a monotone laser printer and plain paper intended for copiers / laser printers. You will want a laser printer with a seperate toner and drum so you do not need to replace the drum each time you replace the toner. Injets and thermal printers cost more per each label produced.
- I used a high end Zebra thermal printer, costly several thousand dollars, at a job site to produce large adhesive labels intended for 2,300 tote boxes full of product housed in the warehouse. It produced large adhesive labels that you could not remove from surfaces without destroying the label. The cost of each label meant nothing to the company as the product inside each tote was worth at least $500 wholesale and we generated several hundred totes per shift.
- You typically want to to use your computer's print dialog to print two labels per 8.5" x 11" sheet. Cut the labels out from the page of paper and leave a 1/2" to 1" margin around the label's graphics. Use 2" clear packaging tape to adhere the labels on the boxes. Run a vertical strip of tape up the left and right sides. Run horizontal strips of tape across the label that overlap the horizontal strips. Cover the entire surface of the label BUT NOT THE LARGE LOWER BAR CODE! If you cover the lower large barcode postal equipment may have a problem with scanning the bar code through the tape.
- Get some standard 2" wide tape rolls. Obtain a tape gun. I'd also suggest a sand filled heavy-duty tape dispenser to hold 2" tape. You may find it easier to tear of strips of tape from the dispenser to tape down the label than using a tape gun.
- You will need a small scale to weigh items in ounces. These typically have a maximum weight of 2 to 5 pounds so you will need a scale to weigh heavier items above this weight. The scale does not have to be anything fancy or even new - just accurate. I have one electronic platform scale that weighs up to 400 pounds; a couple smaller digital scales that weigh up to 3 pounds; several other platform scales; and a couple vintage mechanical scales missing their glass dials that weigh up to 25 pounds. These are located at various stations on work. Don't buy any type of electronic scale which requires you to purchase and physcially install a new rate "chip" or download shipping rates (hopefully they don't still make those).
- Use a credit card with a rewards system to pay for all labels and eBay fees - that means you are getting a 1%, 1.5%, 2% discount on your labels and fees when you trade these reward points for an account credit. Better yet, signup for a card with a signup bonus such as getting a $150 account credit for spending $500 in 90 days. Now have your eBay customers get you that $150 bonus by labels. Think outside the box - try to use the same labor to generate multiple sources of income!
"Since they charge the 10% fvf on shipping costs whether you print your labels online or not, why not print them."
Exactly what my post stated!
The OP is not a Top Rated seller and eBay labels are not the best deal. Pirateship is the best deal as they do not punish eBay sellers for not being Top Rated. The OP should shift to eBay labels after he or she reaches Top Rated to get the 3% discount off commercial pricing. The real question is why is eBay not giving the OP $100 insurance and a 3% discount off commercial like Top Rated sellers along with giving everyone cubic pricing? Not giving these to everyone is another eBay surcharge on top of their 10% FVF on shipping which of course means more profits for eBay and higher costs to buyers.
"The claim of not charging to print the labels is still true."
Of course they charge to print labels. Its called a 10% Final Value Fee on shipping. They then rebate 3% of this 10% fee to Top Rated sellers. I know many people want to believe the myth that FVFs on shipping were started to reduce shipping costs. We were told by eBay that sellers were cheating eBay of FVF fees by offering low priced items with ultra high shipping costs and the only way to combact these high shipping costs was to charge a FVF on shipping. The actual way to decrease shipping costs on such transactions would be to compare the amount the seller is charging for shipping to the cost of a label and then only charge a 10% FVF on the overage. Instead eBay charged every seller a FVF on shipping under the guise of lower shipping costs. Not technical reason preventing this. The real goal of FVF on shipping was not to lower shipping costs but to raise shipping costs so eBay could make more money under the false guise of lower costs to buyers.
If I am selling off my own site I get the same commercial rates from pirateship without the 10% or 7% eBay surcharge. Shouldn't eBay really being offering the lowest shipping costs on its site?
FVF on shipping is on par with other eBay policies designed ot raise shipping costs.
Baby steps. 
(That's a little overkill )
That exactly what my post says.
Its a plan of action to be taken by the OP depending on how fast the OP wants to receive the benefits.
Want a 1% to 2% discount on your eBay fees and shipping labels? Signing up for a credit card takes 15 minutes and the card arrives in a couple weeks. Otherwise continue to throw money away.
Want to attach labels faster than using a roll of tape and a pair of scissors? Buy a standard 2" tape gun and tape dispenser or don't buy these and continue to waste your time.
What to cut your labels out faster? Buy a pair of 12-14" wallpaper scissors so its it just one cut per side. As a bonus you can cut cardboard more safely than with a box cutter and if you turn the scissors upside side you can use them as a scoring tool for boxes. Don't buy the scissors and continue to waste time.
The scanners don't have an issue reading them. A drop of rain, especially with an inkjet, and that barcode/tracking is toast.
You should not be using a inkjet as per my post. They have way higher consumable costs. They also have more technical glitches. A montone laser printer uses heat to fuse the toner to the paper and does not use water solueable ink. Each toner cartidge in my 2001 era laser printer is rated at 4000 copies at 5% coverage and costs less than $40. Two labels per sheet is no where near 5% coverage - the actual yield is 20,000+ labels (less than $.002 each).
Actually they do have trouble reading labels, especially with the old and worn equipment often found at many small town post offices (where I take my packages). Multiple layers of tape can optically interfere with the scanner causing the the clerk to make multiple passes over the package until the bar code is read. You mean to tell me you've never seen a clerk have to make multiple passes over a package? Lucky you.
They are also likely to have a problem if the labels are pixelated. This typically results from a new seller attempting to enlarge a rastered label file too much. The scanner might not be able to read the bar code at all and require the clerk to enter its tracking number by hand.
