Thread: Shipping boxes...

Hey starting up my own business.

Anyone know of a good place to buy shipping material..

Looking for a place to buy boxes.


Googled some places but wondering if someone had some recommendations

I think you can get free boxes from the post office. Check USPS.com.

hmm didnt think they were free

Boxes are free for priority mail service from the post office, you can get them directly at the post office or get an account from usps.com and order them. You can also get other supplies for free, other boxes for different types of shipping, etc.

UPS you can also get free boxes with an account, most shipping companies do offer this.

However keep in mind these boxes only work for certain products, not everything.

Good places to buy other boxes are quill.com for one

Those are for priority flat rate boxes which is expensive to ship... im goin First-Class Mail which is about $7 cheaper

Originally Posted by xsnoboard

Those are for priority flat rate boxes which is expensive to ship... im goin First-Class Mail which is about $7 cheaper

Priority mail is cheap, what kind of products are you shipping?
Not all boxes are 'flat rate' from the post office.

Nope, USPS has both in priority mail (same with express mail).
Flat rate or pay by the weight and distance.

Depends on what you are mailing out.
Size, cube, weight, fragile or not, and so forth.

shipping on my item comes out to be $1.50 from MA to CA

weight is 2 ounces or less on the item being shipped

If shipping product, keep in mind you will want some sort of tracking otherwise you will be totally at the mercy of the individual ordering from you. Especially if you accept paypal or credit card.

All they have to say is 'I didn't get it' and you'll have no choice but to pay them the money back.

So i take it no tracking on first class mail.

I am just trying to keep my prices low...

My product cost me $1.50

I am selling for $10 free shipping.


If i step up the shipping to priority mail it will cost a lil less than $5 to ship...

I could just raise my prices to compensate shipping... But id rather not

I think you might be able to get tracking on first class, I know however getting priority mail online you get the tracking I think included for free.

It's been awhile since I had to do the shipping for my business so I am not 100% up on it ATM..



Dawg however is an expert mg:

Plus boxes can easily cost a buck or more each. Say $1.50 for first class, $1.00 for box, $.50 or more for tracking you're already at $3.00..

if i order boxes online of my own they are 15-25 cents each

Originally Posted by xsnoboard

if i order boxes online of my own they are 15-25 cents each

That cheap? that also includes the shipping to your door? If so, well that I believe is cheaper than the large bulk order of boxes my company buys per box...

I guess it does depend on quality though, if you can get by with a thinner box 'not saying they are' but if you can go for it..

Check with your local post office.
If first class, but a certain thickness or above, or a small parcel, you can get delivery confirmation for an extra fee.
All that does is confirm it was delivered at a certain time to the address shown.
For better service on that, get signature confirmation. Then you have a signature of someone at that address who accepted the package.

Or for about double, just certify the mailing.

I always got people to certify when mailing anything they wanted to be sure the other party got.

cant do tracking on first class but can do delivery confirmation

xsnoboard added 0 Minutes and 40 Seconds later...

posted before i read dawgs post... on the usps site now

Originally Posted by xsnoboard

cant do tracking on first class but can do delivery confirmation

xsnoboard added 0 Minutes and 40 Seconds later...

posted before i read dawgs post... on the usps site now

Delivery confirmation is about the same thing, something to show that it was delivered

While on USPS site, search for post office using zip of 77470.
That was where I was postmaster for a dozen years.

75 cents for delivery confirmation or if done electronically its like 16 cents

xsnoboard added 0 Minutes and 40 Seconds later...

the size of the box ill be using is like

L=8in H= 3in D= 3in

or i might use 6 or 8 inch tubes in 3 inch diameter

xsnoboard added 32 Minutes and 1 Seconds later...

Wonder how much I could trust shipping something fragile in bubble mailer envelopes...

Originally Posted by xsnoboard

Wonder how much I could trust shipping something fragile in bubble mailer envelopes...

From experience,,,it would not be a good idea.

Originally Posted by Red Hot Mama

I think you can get free boxes from the post office. Check USPS.com.

No such thing as free lunch or free boxes

Just buy in huge wholesale and the cost per box is essentially zero

Originally Posted by Ned

No such thing as free lunch or free boxes

Just buy in huge wholesale and the cost per box is essentially zero

The boxes from shipping companies are free using their services. True one could argue the box prices are put into the cost of the service, you however pay the same for the service using your own box or the one supplied, technically making the box free fo charge.

Huge wholesale lot of boxes? When one does not need that many it would be a huge waste, it still is not 'zero' I have been buying large lots of boxes for years and they still add up the cost on your shipping bottom line.

I found afew sites and can get them as low as 18-25 cents per box in a order of 50. I am using fairly small boxes... Seeing i am only shipping sunglasses

Originally Posted by xsnoboard

I found afew sites and can get them as low as 18-25 cents per box in a order of 50. I am using fairly small boxes... Seeing i am only shipping sunglasses

Just be careful of the price of shipping to you..

"If shipping product, keep in mind you will want some sort of tracking otherwise you will be totally at the mercy of the individual ordering from you. Especially if you accept paypal or credit card. "

Grim, I actually disagree with you on this. We have shipped tens of thousands of orders to the US and around the world using normal postal mail from Hong Kong without many problems. We have a policy

For one, customers are much more honest than we think. We have an internal policy whereby we resend without any questions if the customer does not receive the goods within 5 weeks. Since it will add almost $2 onto the shipping cost if we use registered air mail, quite a lot of money was saved. Almost all the merchants I know in Hong Kong use normal non-trackable mail. We only use registered air mail or courier for large orders and also for countries that have a poor record of lost packages.

Originally Posted by zxpro168

Grim, I actually disagree with you on this. We have shipped tens of thousands of orders to the US and around the world using normal postal mail from Hong Kong without many problems. We have a policy

Buying product from outside of the US does change the terms of credit card and pay pal transactions Sorry to say but your experience means nothing compared to what happens in the US.

We have countless packages signed by the customer, and the customer still claims they did not get the package. With chargeback fees being at all time highs, the chances of winning a chargeback at all time lows it's necessary to have tracking. The terms of pay pal and credit card companies also go with this line...

As far as I know the terms are exactly the same. If anything, it is worse for merchants shipping to the US from the outsde. The banks have no hesitation is raising a chargeback because they know there is very little chance that the merchant involved would take the matter further.

We have had chargebacks where the customer claimed that the goods did not fit their specification, made an erroneous double order, or claimed that they have sent it back to us (there was no tracking no, and we never received it). In all cases, the customer was able kept the goods without having to send it back.I feel that the banks themselves were accessory to the theft of goods.

With PayPal you can still lose if you have shipped to an address that is different to that on their PayPal account. I don't think there is anyway that a merchant can know this.

It looks like that you are dealing with the so called "friendly fraud" here, which is anything but friendly and is truely desipicable. This had only happened to us once or twice. As far as I gather, this is probably much more likely to apply to higher priced items.
Our average order is only around $35 and because of our experiences above, we were loathe to carry more expensive items. Also, a lot of merchants claimed that it is much more likely with AMEX orders.

By the way, we also found that large packages are more likely to be lost. I think this is because they are more likely to attract the attention of thieves.

Without getting into this much more terms are definitely different from 'domestic' to even within a set amount of miles from your house.

Amex is also bar none the best credit card company to do business with from a merchant perspective

The issue for us is that if the customer claims that he had not received the products, we will have to resend anyway. There is no way we can defend against a chargeback irrespective whether the terms are different or not. Even if there is prove that he has received them, we will still lose the chargeback.

Grim, if you are dealing with large wholesale orders, then AMEX would probably be an essential option for you. But there are so many scary stories around that we dared not take AMEX. In any case, it would cost us at least 1% more per transaction.

Do you lose if you discontinue Amex?

Amex discontinuation

USATODAY.com - American Express fees take flak

Personally, I use AMEX for all my online transactions because I know it is very easy to raise a chargebabk.

I just want to use the cheapest shipping method so I can do free shipping on my items.

For what I am getting I should add delivery confirmation or signature confirmation.

From a customer standpoint I think signature confirmation is annoying on low priced items. On high priced order signature confirmations make me feel more comfortable about getting my order.