How To Pack And Ship Your Ebay Orders (2022 Ebay Shipping Guide For Beginners)

after being on poshmark for some time i decided to try out ebay and that transition from one shipping option on poshmark to what seems like hundreds over on ebay was really hard i made so many mistakes when i got started sometimes i'd send items in the wrong packaging other times i'd lose money because of shipping but after being on there for some time i've kind of got the hang of it so here is the ebay shipping video i wish i had when i got started i think the best way to demystify ebay shipping is starting here right on the ebay website as if i was listing something so here is the listing that i did yesterday i'm going to scroll down to the shipping details so we can talk all about that if you'd like a video on how to fill out all of these other fields here on the ebay listing let me know i can work on that but for now as i said we're skipping here to shipping details the way this video is going to work we're going to start off by giving a quick overview of this whole shipping details and then we'll go back and talk in depth on these drop down menus right here and then in the end we'll package some orders together so you can see how everything works so starting at the top of the shipping detail section the first thing you have to do is choose the type of shipping you want to go with here are let's see four different types of shipping but you can also do free shipping by check marking this option right here next we have shipping rate table and here's where you will go and create a table that has different shipping options in case you want to give your buyer more than one to choose from but i never use this i always just stick to one shipping option and move on the next section is going to be services after you choose the type of shipping you want to do you're going to want to tell ebay what service you're going to fulfill with as you can see there are many different options but i'm going to break all this down for you and it'll all make sense this next option here is for local pickup if you want to meet someone face to face like you would on different apps like offer up you would click here they would buy on ebay and then you would just meet up then we have handling time you can choose how long you want ebay to give you for you to pack and ship the item just make sure that whatever you choose it is something you can manage because you do get penalized for not having orders done on time if you put one day make sure you can get this packed and shipped within those 24 hours and if you need more time then just go ahead and choose the option that works best for you next we have international shipping here's where you will check mark if you want your orders to be sold worldwide i always check mark this because it doesn't cost me anything extra and there's no extra work involved with selling internationally i get my labels the same way print them package my items the same way and ship them in the same way too so i just always go ahead and keep this checked this next little section is pretty much self-explanatory you're going to put in the weight and the dimensions of your package so the length the width and the height will go here from this drop down menu you can change it i always just leave it as package or thick envelope and then for the weight of course the pounds and the ounces will go here what i like to do is as i'm taking my pictures i will package the item in a clear poly bag and then i will set it on top of a scale along with the package that i think the item will fit in and then i take a picture of the scale that way as i'm listing i have that information available i know exactly how much the item will weigh with the packaging and i can input that information here into ebay as i'm listing if you'd ever like to not ship to certain locations you can create an exclusion list right here i never have i've never seen the need to do something like that and then the last thing here is just your item location so where will you be shipping from but most of the time this is something that you input as you're creating your account so this most likely is already filled out for you now let's talk in depth about these drop down menus right here the first one choosing your shipping type if you're selling mostly lightweight items like shoes and clothes and even some hard goods that aren't that heavy you won't be using this fright shipping option here and then if you're not planning on selling locally you won't be using this bottom option either that says no shipping so the only three we have to worry about is flat shipping calculated shipping and then free shipping if you choose to check mark this box right here so i'm going to explain how each of these three shipping types work and we'll also talk about some pros and cons of each so that you can decide which shipping type you want to use let's start talking about calculated shipping when you choose calculated shipping ebay will use the buyer's location your package weight and dimensions to auto calculate how much a buyer should pay for shipping if you list your item for thirty dollars and ebay determines that the buyer should pay ten dollars in shipping once a sale is made ebay will give you the thirty dollars and the ten dollars that they paid for shipping that will be your payout from that payout you will then be responsible for creating and purchasing your shipping label i know this may be common sense to some people but me coming from poshmark where things were much more simpler the buyer paid for the shipping label to poshmark they created the label and then they just email it to us we didn't have to worry about that part all we received were the final earnings from the sale not the whole payout like ebay does now let's talk about some pros and some cons of using calculated shipping the first pro is that it's simple and it's easy especially for beginners you don't have to worry about much other than inputting the proper weight and the proper dimensions of your package ebay will tell the buyer how much to pay and that is that another pro is that if for some reason the buyer ends up paying more than they needed to for shipping you get to keep the difference say that ebay told them that they needed to pay 12 because that's how much they calculated based on the distance and the package weight and all of that but then when you go to buy and create your label it only ends up costing you eight dollars that's a four dollar difference and so you get to keep the difference you get to keep those four extra dollars it's not always that much sometimes it's just a couple dollars or a dollar in some change but that could be a pro that you get to keep a little bit of extra money here and there but that pro can also change into a con because from what i've experienced and from what i've heard other resellers say calculated shipping does tend to overcharge often it's not always by a lot like i said but it can also be a disadvantage because if someone has the exact item you have listed for sale it's in the same condition and it's listed for the same price the only difference is shipping yours is at 12 because of calculated shipping and maybe the other person's is at nine dollars because they use the flat fee option they're going to go with the cheaper one since they're going to pay less for shipping and the last con with this option is that you're going to have to take the time to be specific with your item weights and dimensions when you're first listing because even though the calculated shipping is not always that accurate you definitely don't want to end up with the opposite problem where buyers underpaid for shipping and then you're stuck paying the difference so you can avoid that by making sure that you put in the proper information in this package and weight dimension section of your listing moving on to the second shipping type it's flat rate shipping and it's as it says right here it's going to be the same cost to all buyers so once you select this option it will give you a box here to put in what you want your flat fee to be and again with this option if your item sells for thirty dollars and you ask for ten dollars as a flat fee for shipping ebay is going to give you a total of forty dollars and from there you will create and purchase your shipping label and same thing as previously if your label ends up costing less than the fee that you asked for shipping you keep the difference but if your label costs more than you ask for shipping then you have to pay the difference that will come out of your pocket the first pro when it comes to the flat fee option is that it gives you a competitive advantage if you know what you're doing and you know how much you should charge for shipping you can make sure that the buyer isn't overpaying like they do sometimes with calculated shipping and so you'll have more competitive rates and if you wanted to split the cost of shipping with a buyer then in that field for the flat fee you can put less than you know it's going to be then you'll just pay the rest and again that can give you a competitive advantage for the shipping rates that other sellers have another pro with this flat fee option is that unlike the previous one you don't necessarily have to be specific with your weight and dimensions when you're first listing since your fee is going to be flat no matter where it goes to no matter who buys it won't really make that much of a difference you will need that information when you're creating your label but not when you're first listing your item so if you're selling on other platforms and you're cross listing this can be helpful so that you don't have to take the time to weigh things if it doesn't end up selling on ebay and you will only have to take the time to get this information once it does sell on ebay and that leads into the only con with this option though if you're new and you're still learning about all the shipping options and the shipping prices there's a lot of room for mistakes sometimes you could end up not charging enough and so you're stuck paying the difference so make sure that you only use this option if you know what you're doing if you can look at something like this and know off the top of your head about how much it would be to ship if you know the package you're going to be needing to use with it if you know if it's going to go first class or priority mail if you know all of that off the top of your head then you're ready to use the flat fee option but if not you should probably wait till you learn a little bit more about all of this before you use it just so that you don't end up losing money on sales the last option we're going to talk about it's not really a shipping type that's listed here but i just threw it in this section if you check mark this box it gives the buyers free shipping and unlike the other options if you put free shipping and your item sales for thirty dollars that's all you're getting you're not getting any extra money to cover your shipping label costs that will have to come out of your final sale of thirty dollars minus any fees that ebay takes from that the first pro when it comes to free shipping is that there is a potential for you to make more sales when people are searching for something on ebay there is a filter off to the side where they can check if they want to see only items that offer free shipping so this can definitely be a big advantage for you your items are more likely to pop up when people check mark that option the second pro is that just like with the flat fee option you don't have to worry about weighing your items and the sizes before you list you will only have to worry about getting that information when and if the item sells so this can definitely be a time saver most of the time when people offer free shipping they will just add the cost of shipping to their price so if they know that they want to sell these shoes for say forty dollars but they want to offer free shipping they know the shipping label is gonna cost them ten dollars they will just add it to the forty dollars so they'll list these shoes for fifty dollars with free shipping and that will help them offset the cost of the label while still getting the advantage of out offering free shipping and potentially being shown up when someone filters by that option but just like with the flat fee option if you don't know the ins and outs of shipping and prices and everything this could cut into your profits you have to be able to know exactly how much to add to the pricing to offset that shipping cost so make sure that you're only using this option if you know what you're doing this is how i lost money in the beginning i offered free shipping not really knowing what it was going to cost me in the end and so i ended up losing money another con with free shipping can be that you're going to pay more in fees ebay fees vary from category to category i don't really know what it would be for shoes but let's just say that it's 10 ebay fees on shoes if you sell them for forty dollars then ebay will charge ten percent of the forty dollars but you wanna offer free shipping so now you're bumping up the price to fifty dollars now ebay is gonna charge the 10 on the 50 not just the 40 so there you may be paying more for fees by offering free shipping but if it's helping you make more sales then it could just balance itself out in the end so there you go those are the three shipping types i know it's a lot to think about it's hard to decide which one you should do right now i haven't decided myself i'm still experimenting with all three it varies from item to item which one i go with i don't think there is a clear cut answer some people swear by free shipping others like the ease of the flat fee and some just prefer to do calculated shipping and let ebay do that work some people even do a mix of it so if the item is over a pound they will charge for shipping if the item is below one pound they will do free shipping on those items just because it's a lot cheaper to ship items below a pound so in the end it's going to vary person to person business to business on what you'd like to do i'd suggest that you experiment to see what you like best but one recommendation i do have is that if you're a beginner and you're barely learning the ropes of shipping prices and everything that you stick with calculated shipping until you get the hang of things now let's talk about this huge drop down menu that comes with the shipping services so you can see this is a lot and it can be overwhelming but luckily you don't have to know what each one of these are and how they work to get started selling on ebay here you can see options for the united states postal service which is usps for short you see options for fedex and ups but if you're selling mostly clothing and shoes and home decor here and there you will always be using usps the only time you may have to mess with fedex and ups is if you're shipping things that are like over 10 pounds or something that's the only time it would make sense to look into those two options but other than that usps is always going to be the cheapest option and the ones that you're going to be using and within usps there are three options that you will use it's medium mail first class mail and usps priority mail so we're going to talk about those i'm going to explain where to find them on that drop down menu how to use them what packaging to use i will skip over pricing though because at the end of the video i will show you where you can find prices to all of this but for now let's get into how each of these work these shipping services are divided into different categories right here is economy services then we have standard services right here then we have this long list of expedited services one day services services from abroad standard services and on and on but as i said we only have to worry about three and the very first one was media mail and that can be found here under economy services right here it says usps media mail two to eight business days is how long it will take to get to its destination and here i have the media mail service rules pulled up i will leave a link to this down below in case you want to see it for yourself but reading straight from here media mail shipping is a cost effective way to send educational materials so any books sound recordings music loose leaf pages anything that's educational can be shipped via media mail service so if you have any of that kind of stuff this will always be the cheapest option to go with with some shipping options you can use the free shipping supplies provided by usps online we'll get into that later but with medium l you have to use your own packaging so when i ship out books i will use little poly bags like this one but you can also use your own brown boxes that you can purchase on amazon or at walmart or any grocery store but when i say your own packaging it doesn't always mean packages that you buy with your own money sometimes you can also use these boxes that you get from your online orders so this is a walmart box that i got i reuse amazon boxes as well you just have to make sure that any labels or any numbers that are on these boxes are taken off or crossed out somehow so that the post office workers don't get confused and then you're set to go you can always reuse any boxes you have laying around but again with media mail you have to use your own packaging you cannot use the free shipping supplies provided by the post office the second shipping service you need to know about because you may be using is here under standard services it is called usps first class and it arrives in three to five business days first class is what you will use when you have an item that weighs one pound or below so 15.99 ounces or below that will qualify for first class smell with first class smell you must also use your own shipping supplies so poly mailers or boxes that you have that's what you will need to use for first class mail and when i talk about the weight of these shipping services that includes the boxes too or any packing supplies you use once your item is above one pound though you cannot use first class anymore you will need to move on to the next shipping service which is priority mail priority mail can be found here under expedited services and again this is the service you will want to use when your item weighs over one pound the great thing about priority mail is that you can use the free shipping supplies that you can get online all you have to do is go to the usps.com website click on supplies right here and then click on free shipping supplies under product type and as you can see all these are marked at zero dollars so you just add all the ones you want to your cart and you can check out and it will ship for free to your home as well or you can always walk into any usps office and they have this free shipping supplies available there for you too the thing with priority mail is that there are like seven options for you to choose from this drop down menu that are all priority mail so all these first bunch right here are priority mail then down here we have usps and fedex which i mentioned it's something you'd never have to mess with unless you're shipping something very heavy here towards the bottom you will see us priority mail express this is something that you'd only have to dabble with if a buyer requested to have their items shipped very quickly other than that this express ones we would never mess with and then also these us priority mail regional box a and b i'm not going to talk about today this is for when you're shipping something a little bit heavier too the only ones we're going to be talking about is usps regular priority mail right here this first option and then all the ones that say us priority mail flat rate those are the ones we're going to be discussing next the first one is going to be this usps priority mail the regular option this one is not to be confused with the flat rate priority mail options down here which we're going to talk about next with the priority mail regular option you can use your own packaging but if you're going to use the free packaging that you get on the website you just have to make sure that it says mailing box or let's see like this one mailing envelope i also have this larger one here that says mailing box as well the other ones will say flat rate on it but the ones that are for the priority mail regular are going to say mailing box and there are many more regular priority mail boxes that you can order on the website but as i said when ebay asks for the weight of your package it also includes the box or anything you're using to ship your item and since boxes weigh a lot more than poly bags or envelopes what i tend to do is stick to this mailing envelope right here when i am using this regular priority mail option and sometimes when things don't fit in this one i will put them into this large poly envelope that i got from amazon in here i can fit large jackets and sweaters and jeans and since this is lightweight it will keep the weight down making my shipping costs a lot less than if i were to ship in a box when i ship shoes in this polybag right here i will make sure to wrap it in this bubble wrap so that it can stay secure and safe in there and again i buy this on amazon i will link everything i use and have mentioned in this video down in the description all right the next priority mail option was the flat rate option and that's going to include these six right here and all of these basically mean the same thing it's going to be a flat rate fee no matter the destination and no matter how much it weighs as long as it's under 70 pounds the price will always be the same the only difference between all of these is the packaging you will use and the fee is a flat rate but it's going to vary from package to package for example this right here is called a small flat rate box as you can see now it says flat rate and not just mailing like the previous option this right here will mail for eight dollars and 25 cents no matter how much it weighs and no matter where it's going to their slogan for the flat rate options is if it fits it ships so no matter what it is as long as it fits in here and you can close it securely it's going to be the same price for this next option it's called the medium flat rate box as you can see right there and this one will ship for 14.25 again no matter how much it weighs as long as it fits in here it's going to be that price another option is this padded flat rate envelope and this one will ship for 8.45 so when something doesn't fit in the small flat rate box the very first one i showed you this is probably the next cheapest option or if not some of these envelopes right here these aren't just for papers if you can fit any clothing item or anything else in these securely you can also use them for that and these are also cheap options as well and again all of this can be ordered from the usps website or you can get these shipping supplies at your local usps office but unlike the previous option with the priority mail flat rate options you cannot use your own packaging you must use the packaging that you selected so if you select this padded flat ray envelope and you print that kind of label that's the kind of packaging you have to use because that's what you paid for this packaging with these dimensions you can't switch it up and use something different if you pay for a priority mail medium box label then that's the package you have to use you can't switch it up okay so just to summarize everything i've talked about so far so that it makes sense most of the time you're going to be using usps options from the shipping service drop down menu on ebay from those options there are three main kind that you will use and that is media mail first class and priority mail media mail you will use anytime you have anything educational books recordings newspaper if you have any of that kind of stuff it's always going to be cheaper and the best option will always be medium out with medium mail you have to use your own packaging the next option was first class that's the one you will use if your item weighs below one pound and with that again you have to use your own packaging the last option was priority mail that's the one you will use when your item and package weighs over one pound but within priority mail there is regular priority mail and priority mail flat rate regular priority mail will say mailing box or mailing envelope on the package itself with that one you can use your own packaging if you'd like as well and then the second option the flat rate option will say flat rate on the packaging on the box or the envelope and with that one you are not allowed to use your own packaging you have to use the one you selected so i know that that is a lot of information i just threw at you but trust me the more you do this the more familiar you will become with all the shipping options and prices everything will just kind of start to become second nature to you you'll know things just off the top of your head but in the meantime as you're learning ebay does have a great tool to help you out it's called the ebay shipping calculator and you can find it right here right above the services option if you just click on calculate shipping that will bring about the shipping calculator but you don't have to be here listing an item in order for you to use this calculator i will leave the direct link for this down in the description so anytime you want to estimate about how much shipping will cost for something you can use this calculator let me just show you how it works so you can use it when you need it first of all you have to choose your packaging type i always leave mine as package the dimensions i'm just going to input some for now so that it can let us use this calculator and then for weight i'll just leave it at 2 for now here you will input your shipping zip code if it's not pre-filled already and then we'll put whether we are shipping domestic or international i'm going to leave it as domestic and click on calculate shipping let me just go ahead and make this full screen so that you can see what i am doing better from here at the top it's going to give you all the information you just input in the previous page then we have to select the shipping service that we want to use the first thing you want to do is switch it from in-store rate to ebay rates because in-store rates are always going to cost more than if you were to buy it through ebay most of the time these selling platforms have deals with these shipping services so that you can get your labels at a lower cost but that is only if you buy it here online through them up here you can switch it from usps to fedex or ups but most of the time as i've been saying usps is going to be cheaper so we'll leave it here then the services are divided into different categories just like they were earlier economy services and expedited services since this is not below one pound it's not showing me any first class options because it doesn't qualify for that but it does show me media mail right here so if i wanted to use this option all i had to do is click it and then down here under the expedited services i can see how much it would cost to ship this item with regular priority mail it'll be ten dollars if i were to use a small flat rate box it would be eight twenty five if i were to use a padded flat rate envelope it would be 8.45 so from these options you can select one or more so let's say i wanted to give buyers the option to get it faster with priority mail i can select that i can also select the small flat rate box if i wanted to and then here off to the side you can see all the services you've selected you can click and hold and move them around because this will show up in your listing so you can choose the order you want buyers to see it in i've never offered more than one shipping option i always stick to just one so if i was mailing this and it was a medium mail i would leave only media mail and if not if it fits in a padded flat rate then i would use that just always going with the cheapest most cost effective option once you're done selecting your services just click on offer shipping services and it will have selected this for you right here when you do offer the flat rate shipping type where you charge buyers a specific amount no matter where they're shopping from that ebay calculator can help you determine what that cost should be or if you're offering free shipping and you want to offset the cost by adding the shipping price to your final selling price you can use that ebay calculator to determine how much more you should charge for the item so that you have enough to pay for your shipping label i was hoping to have more orders today so that i can do them with you and show you more examples but the only order i have right now to ship out is this shirt right here so i'm going to show you how it's done first of all i need a packaging to put it in i already know that this is a lightweight item so it's gonna go first class so i'm going to need my own packaging if these shoes well actually these shoes did sell but they haven't paid for them yet so i'm not going to ship them out until i get that payment notification but if these were ready to ship i know these would be over one pound so i would be looking for a priority mail packaging option and checking out which one would be best as i told you earlier i ordered these large envelopes from amazon but when i'm shipping something light i would just cut it so that i only have a small piece and just save the rest for another order so this right here is actually just a piece of this large envelope which is what i will be using to ship this shirt so there we go my item is packaged and ready to go the next thing we have to do is weigh it on the shipping scale right here so this item weighs 7.8 ounces but we're going to round up to eight ounces you always want to round up just to be sure that you're paying for enough postage you don't want to end up with extra fees afterwards so always just round up then we're going to measure this now here on the ebay website we will go to sale we'll go to orders and awaiting shipment and here's the shirt that i have to ship i will click on purchase shipping label and right here it has the information that i input previously as i was listing the shirt as i said earlier when i'm done taking pictures of an item to list i will also go ahead and take a picture of the item on top of the scale with the packaging i think i will be using most of the time this ends up being accurate but sometimes it does change if the type of packaging i thought i would be using changes but right now it is accurate so all i have to do is just change these dimensions right here and click enter so that it can give me my shipping prices below so here i have all the shipping prices one of them will say buyer selected they selected first class and this will go out first class so there is not a problem but if for some reason they had selected priority mail but when i go to weigh my item and create my label i see that the item can actually go first class i cannot change it i cannot change it from priority mail to first class because that is going down in services however if i wanted to send this priority mail even though it qualifies for first class there wouldn't be a problem with it because i'm going up in services so that's just a tip there never go down in services if they chose priority mail that's what you have to go with even if it costs more i hope all that makes sense but i'm going to go with first class package in this instance and then just scroll all the way to the bottom if you want to add any extra options here some of them cost more you can right here you can click on add custom text on label right here so that it can show you your skew number right on the label that makes it easy when you're packaging a lot of orders you can select the type of shipping format you want you can print it or you can get a qr code that you can then show to a clerk at a usps office and they can print the label for you right here you're going to select how you're going to pay for the shipping label you can either use your funds from this order or you can use a paypal account i'm going to select funds for this one and then just click on purchase shipping label right now my computer has selected my regular just paper printer that i have if i select this then it will print out on a large page like this the first class label will be up here on the right hand side and all i have to do is cut it with scissors and tape this to my package but i can also change this from the regular printer to a dymo label thermal printer then i will change the size and then if i print it out using this option this will have the sticky paper so then i can just stick this right onto my package so you can use either or a regular paper printer all you have to do is cut and tape it or you can use a thermal printer either works so that is everything this package is ready to go from here all i have to do is either put this envelope into my mailbox outside and when the mailman comes for regular mail he will take it i can put it in one of the blue mailboxes that are around town i can take it to a usps office or i can schedule a pickup sometimes if i have a lot of packages i will leave them outside my porch schedule pickup and then they will just come pick them up when they come deliver regular mail i hope that i've answered all the questions you had about ebay shipping if there's something i didn't cover that you have a question about just leave a comment down below i will get back to you as soon as i can and that's all for me today thank you so much for watching i'll see you next time

Channel: Sandra The Mom Boss

Views: 37,561

Keywords: Ebay shipping for dummies, free ebay shipping, cheapest shipping for ebay sellers, ebay shipping hacks, ebay shipping tips, ebay, ebay shipping, ebay seller

Id: htl-VgqBDi8

Length: 38min 6sec (2286 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 24 2022