General Forum

Need some help. 

I have been wanting to ship from home for a while now but have never gotten around to it.  Post Office is pretty convinient for me so I have not been too worried about it.  With the current situation it has put my thinking into overdrive. 

But how do I do it?

I have seen numerous things on the forums that you all do and am looking for pros and cons of everything. 

About myself.  I do not sell.  I do quite a bit of trading, so it will be mostly for sending trades out from home.

Paypal Shipping?

Stamps.com?

Postal service website?

Thanks for the help

I recently signed up for stamps.com and I like it. There is a monthly fee but I weighed that against the time I spent going to the post office and waiting in line and decided it was worth it to me. Plus there is a discount for using it. 

I am considering Stamps.com but what is the 17.99 a month charge for?  I have to pay them to buy stamps? Or am I missing something. 

PayPal will give you the USPS business discount.  It's free, no monthly fee, just have to link a bank or credit card.  You can request a pickup.

Do you know if they have a debit system.  Like can I fill up my account with 50 bucks or so and they deduct from that or do they just keep charging my card?  Thanks for the help Chuck.

Also, you can simply purchase stamps from USPS. I'd buy some Forever stamps and Extra Ounce stamps and you'll be set. For packages sign up for PayPal and give it a go. Stamps.com for me would be a waste of money in my opinion unless you're a business that relies on the postal service

Yeah that is a great idea.  I see they even have nonmachinable stamps .  I should have clarified that my concern is shipping packages out (bubble mailers, etc)  That is where I get confused, and sometimes, depending on the cards, I like to get tracking. 

Don't forget to get some Global Forever ($1.20) stamps... :)

RoyalChief wrote:

Yeah that is a great idea.  I see they even have nonmachinable stamps .  I should have clarified that my concern is shipping packages out (bubble mailers, etc)  That is where I get confused, and sometimes, depending on the cards, I like to get tracking. 

Sportzcommish wrote:

Also, you can simply purchase stamps from USPS. I'd buy some Forever stamps and Extra Ounce stamps and you'll be set. For packages sign up for PayPal and give it a go. Stamps.com for me would be a waste of money in my opinion unless you're a business that relies on the postal service

someone here turned me on to VIParcel last month and I've been using it quite a bit.  It's routinely cheaper than usps.com and you can pair it with E-bay but E-bay shipping is still cheaper for stuff you sell.  I like it. It's easy so far. 

PayPal shipping and ebay shipping are the same thing. This is why a few of us keep referring everyone to use PayPal for your shipping needs. I don't know if they allow you to take funds from your credit card and create a balance, but I do know there is no credit card fee for charging postage fees. And the price for shipping cannot be beat. There really is no need to use any of these other services, especially ones that charcge you a monthly fee!