Never ask an online seller a question about domestic shipping unless you want to hear a Ted Talk about different shipping services, classes of shipping, and variables that effect cost like distance and size of box. If you ask us at a party, you will have to plead an urgent need for powder room to escape our clutches. Shipping is our wheelhouse. We ship different sized things to different parts of the country on a daily basis, and we pride ourselves on knowing the nuances so we can get things to buyers the most timely and economical way. Our golden rule of packing and shipping is: Pack it thoughtfully and always ship early.
As for packing thoughtfully, our post 9 Packing and Shipping How Tos has info about how to make sure whatever you’re shipping gets to its location in one piece. Protection from padding is important. Every year we see people with a tote bag full of loose things packing a box at the post office, without any padding to keep things from bouncing around en route. There are times we’ve thought of bringing a folding chair and being at the ready to give tutorials on how to pack. It’s a life skill. (See above about asking us questions at a party.)
We also wrote about Understanding the Cost of Shipping Online, which explains of how size, weight and distance determine the cost. Knowing what an oversized box is is a good thing. Another rule of thumb is, if it’s small and very heavy, a USPS flat rate box might be an excellent choice. If it’s small and very light, you are probably overpaying when you use a flat rate box. Also, it’s a snap to set up an account with the USPS and print your labels at home, saving money over the retail rate. You can use an accurate kitchen scale to measure many packages. Accurate weights are important so you don’t have a package arrive postage due.
During Covid, we wrote about Holiday Shipping Tips to Save Money and Avoid Delivery Delays. Although we’re not still navigating that quagmire, most of the advice is still valid. Always ship early. Shipping early does not mean you are supporting the encroachment of December holidays on Thanksgiving. It means that you want your things to arrive on time. Getting there early is not a problem, getting there late isn’t a life changing problem either, but it’s annoying.
Why ship early? In a deeply suspicious voice that sounds a little like impending doom, we will tell you that all this year, we have had packages shipped via USPS do strange things. We know this from checking progress via the tracking number. For example, we watched a package containing a pristine somewhat rare book arrive at a buyer’s post office, get shipped back to a district sorting facility, get shipped back to another regional facility, retrace it’s steps back to the local post office and finally get delivered. Things like this, as well as delays where things sit in sorting facilities for days, have been happening. For sure, the USPS delivers most things in a timely manner, but we have had enough things make loop-the-loops that we now always ship as early as possible.
Another thing we have started doing this year is to get every label scanned in at the point of service. For years, we dropped things on the counter or in the package drop and they got scanned in as soon as they were sent to a regional facility. This year we have had things not get scanned into the system for up to two days.
You can also schedule a USPS pick up for packages at your home, your carrier will scan them in when they are picked up.
USPS, UPS and FedEx all institute raised rates and shipping surcharges for the holiday season, starting in October. This covers the cost of hiring temporary workers, increased handling costs and more. Don’t be surprised when the Christmas package costs more to ship than the birthday package did.
NOTE: Everything we said above is about shipping in the US. We are not experts on international shipping services because we don’t do enough of it, and what we actually do is handled by the selling site. There have been problems reported with packages shipped to the US. In August, the White House canceled the de minimis exemption, which had exempted packages worth $800 or less from tariffs. Since then, it was reported in October that, although 90% of UPS packages shipped to the US from international destinations were delivered, UPS has begun to dispose of packages sent to the US that were unable to clear customs because of tariffs. People have also been receiving large bills for the tariffs. Read more here.
