We online vintage sellers know packing and shipping. Over the years, we’ve made mistakes and honed our skills. Which is why watching people struggling to pack boxes at the post office is so cringey. Around holidays, it can take every ounce of restraint to not lurk in the post office with a tape gun, packing paper and unsolicited advice. The urge to help people and fill their ears with packing and shipping how tos is strong among those of us who consume “so well packed” feedback like chocolate-drizzled popcorn. We can discuss packing and shipping practices ad nauseum. Perhaps this is why we are rarely invited to parties.
Vintage Unscripted has a few posts with packing and shipping how tos. We’ve listed some holiday shipping tips to help you save money and avoid delivery delays, and helped you understanding the cost of shipping online vintage (or anything else).
In this post, we’re going to give you nine down-and-dirty tips for both packing and shipping. Nothing deep and technical, just the basics.
1 Choose the right box
The free boxes and envelopes offered at the post office are likely Priority Mail Flat Rate, meaning no matter what the weight, you pay the same price. Other than Express, Priority is the quickest and most expensive shipping method. Priority Mail Flat Rate packaging can be a good choice for small heavy things, but it’s overkill for lightweight things that don’t have to be delivered urgently.
There are free Priority boxes that are not flat rate. Our local post offices don’t offer them, but yours might. They can be ordered at usps.com at no cost with free shipping.
You can reuse a clean and sturdy box from something you bought online (peel the old label off), and choose slower and cheaper Ground Advantage postage or Media Mail for books and other media to save some cash.
2 Pack it well
This is the most important of all the packing and shipping how tos: pack it at home, not at the post office. Even if you are using a flat rate box, pick it up at the post office and pack at home where you have tape and things that can be used for padding.
Breakable things should have 2″ minimum on all sides between the item and the edge of the box. Packaging saved from online purchases is useful here. Fill that space up with packing paper. Textiles and soft things that have a 0% chance of breaking in transit can go right up to the sides of a box.
Very breakable things can be packed “box in box.” Pad it, pack it in a smaller box, then float that box in a larger box with packing paper as paper cushioning all around. Liquor box cardboard inserts are awesome for protecting breakables.
If you are putting multiple small things in a larger box, you can pack things in smaller boxes and tetris those boxes into the larger box. Fill any void spaces with packing paper so the boxes can’t shift around.
When you’ve packed a box with non-textiles securely, you should be able to push down on the top and not make a dent. You should also not hear things shifting around if you shake the box. (Obviously this doesn’t apply to things like Legos and puzzles.) Pack expecting that your box will be bumped, tossed and banged in transit.
3 Add a plastic bag for rain protection
Boxes are sometimes delivered to spots where they can get rained on. Protect books and textiles by packing them in plastic bags inside the box.
4 Use the right tape and enough of it
The right tape for shipping is packing tape. Masking tape, scotch tape and, above all, blue painter’s tape will not survive the trip. Strapping tape and duct tape both work. Tape across the seam where the box flaps meet, then add a couple more strips. Rule of thumb, the heavier something is, the more tape you use.
5 Don’t wrap the box in brown paper
Wrapping a box in paper and tying it up with string was common a few decades ago. Now there’s a good chance the paper might catch and rip off during processing, meaning the address could tear off and be lost.
6 Print your USPS shipping label at home
An inexpensive but accurate digital kitchen scale is all you need to be able to print your own postage from home. Set up a free USPS account, pay for your shipping, print your label on regular paper in a regular printer and adhere it with packing tape.
7 Choose the most cost efficient shipping service
These are going to be sweeping generalizations because there are so many nuances to determining shipping cost. Our post on understanding the cost of shipping goes into a deeper explanation of things like dimensional weight.
USPS is usually the best choice for regular boxes that are under 8 lbs. A small but heavy box, say over 10 lbs, may be less expensive to ship by UPS or FedEx, unless it fits in a Priority Mail flat rate box.
Oversize boxes are a kettle of fish unto themselves. In the USPSiverse, oversize box is one that totals over 108″ if you add the length of the longest side + the girth ( height x 2 + width x 2). Rates balloon for oversize boxes. Chances are decent that shipping an oversize box by either UPS or FedEx is going to be cheaper. Real life example: An oversize box going less than 75 miles was $37 via USPS Ground Advantage, but only $17 via UPS.
8 Let a pro pack fragile things
Things that are delicate or require special handling, like clocks, art and musical instruments, are best packed by professionals. This may not be your local pack and ship store. You may need a specialty shipper.
9 Insure it properly and consider requiring a signature
Most shipping services cover your package against damage or loss up to $100. Purchase additional insurance the value is higher. Boxes don’t go missing in transit often, but it happens. Also, if it’s high value, consider requiring a signature so it can’t get snatched off a doorstep. A signature also takes a lot of the stress off wondering if it arrived if the package is going to a business, apartment building without a doorman or a condo.
So that’s a general list of packing and shipping how tos. It doesn’t cover every possibility or circumstance. We could absolutely could cover at least 80% of the nuances in a manifesto titled “Packing and Shipping: An Obsession.” But hopefully this list is enough to give you the know how to save money and pack things safely. And hopefully, it didn’t make your eyes glaze over. Like eyes do at parties when we introduce ourself by saying “It’s a well known fact that many people overuse bubble wrap.”
