Ebay - Posting/Packing stress

free3reeder01

Hi there,

I've got a little thing on the side running where I sell stuff on ebay. It's going quite nicely but my big grip is the pain in the butt of P&P.

I don't mind packing them up but it's the messing around in the post office that grinds me. That and the fact that I can't seem to find any good deals on packaging and it ends up costing more than I could legitimately charge on ebay (for fear of scaring buyers off). I have a baby daughter who is now making it quite tricky to get the job in the post office done as she has a new hobby - SCREAMING!!

Any tips from anyone out there who has has a similar problem?

Thanks!

shobewaka

What sort of items are you sending?

If they're large/bulky it's often better to get another delivery company involved, also if you're sending a lot of items i'm fairly sure you can sometimes get cheaper rates when sending in bulk

hilstep2000

I get bubble wrap, tape and brown paper in Poundland. I keep all my jiffy bags (When I've bought something) and shoe boxes, even cereal boxes are useful sometimes. Re-use as much as you can. If you need something not to move, stuff the envelope/parcel with newspaper. Hope this helps!

choille

You can do postage on-line if you look at the Royal mail web-site - I think.

Ask around businesses about recycling their packaging - possibly, plenty of offices dump used jiffy bags, bubble plastic etc.

martinthebandit

I have used http://www.interparcel.com/ in the past, do it all on-line and then they come and collect it from you. Saves a lot of messing about.

There are other companies/courier brokers who do the same

soolin

choille wrote: »

You can do postage on-line if you look at the Royal mail web-site - I think.

.

It still has to go to a post office though to get a receipt for proof of posting.

I take a sack load to my delivery office every evening, all pre stamped at home using real stamps and they just stamp my proof of posting (also completed beforehand).

free3reeder01

They're quite large - some large plates which can be very heavy. All very useful, thanks for your advice. I probably send about 20 things a week - I list items on the same day so I on;y have to do it once a week.

hermum

Do you go to a large post office or small sub office? I've found that the 2 small ones I've used let me drop off the parcels with what I think will be enough cash to cover it & then go back the next day for the COP's & either any change or to pay the extra.
There are a lot of sellers of postal supplies on ebay, so you could possibly get it cheaper online.

pinkteapot

I recently got a huge batch of packing supplies from.... eBay! Something like a 100m roll of bubble wrap for a tenner. I tend to go for wrapping things in bubble wrap and then using plastic posting bags or brown paper, rather than buying jiffy envelopes which always seem expensive. It's more time-consuming though.

free3reeder01

Hermum I like your idea, might give that a try. It's the time consuming nature of loading box after box onto the weighing machine while people tap their feet behind me and my darling daughter practices screeching until she turns purple!

I've looked into using a postal company but it seems to me that the cost is pretty high - I don't know if ebay users would accept those charges. But I guess if I explain I use a courier service they would understand.

katie1968

I use My Hermes (very cheap) for larger items and Royal Mail Smartstamp for everything else.