The Art of Shipping Books
A question came up recently in one of my discussion groups about shipping books. I shared some of the tips I've learned from postal workers. But unfortunately, the postal service is changing some of their ways and thwarting some of our shipping opportunities.
For example, a postal worker suggested to me one day that when we need to ship up to nine of our 80-page books or five of our 180-page books, we should turn the 9 ? X 6 ? X 2 ? size Priority Mail box inside out and mail the books at the media rate. Or we could put the books inside the Priority Mail box, slip the box into a Flat Rate Envelope and send it priority for $3.85 no matter how many books we're shipping or how heavy the package.
But I got a surprise the last time I visited the post office. Those nifty Priority Mail boxes now have "Priority" stamped on the inside as well as the outside. This means we cannot ship that box using the much cheaper media rate. Not only that, they now have restrictions as to the thickness of the materials you can ship in the Flat Rate Envelope.
The post office does offer Priority Mail Flat Rate Boxes now. I have one that measures 10 ? X 9 X 6 inches and costs $7.70 to ship. This is a good price if you fill that box with books. If, however, you have only 3 books to ship, you're paying way too much.
I send books media rate or book rate when I'm paying for shipping. When I charge a customer for shipping, I always send the book first class or Priority Mail. Some people argue that media rate packages take too long to arrive. I shipped about 35 books to St. Louis from CA last October using media rate at a cost of around $7.00 and they arrived in St. Louis just 6 days later.
When I ship just one book, I use a bubble mailer. They weight less, thus cost less to mail than the fiber-filled mailers. When I send more than one book, I use recycled boxes for as long as I have them. But at some point I run out of them, so I did some research for boxes that would work for small shipments of books. Here's what I found. The best price on bubble mailers can be found at http://mailersandmore.com and the best prices on boxes by bulk are at http://www.papermart.com
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