I have been buying stuff on here and noticing that some sellers do not know what the most economical way to send their package is. Since I sell a bit on eBay I thought it might be useful to this community to share some information on that.

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First: Buy your postage on PayPal. If you sold via PayPal goods and services there's an easy link to "buy shipping." If you didn't it's still possible to get to the "PayPal Shipping Center" by googling those words or using this link. You save anywhere from 5% to 30% on USPS postage this way.

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Second: If possible, take advantage of First Class Mail pricing. If the thing you are shipping is less than 1 lb (stoves, pots, stuff sacks, maybe a sleeping pad, pillows, most clothes) you can send it by first class mail/large package. The price for this is by oz (turns out the post office has been UL for decades!) and ranges between 3.00 for a 4 oz package and 5.50 for a 15 oz package. It turns out that most scales one would buy for weight weenie reasons are perfect for postage. Some crazy people even have the gall to call them postal scales. Anyways, the shape of the package doesn't matter so long as it's less than 12x12x12, so feel free to put it in an Amazon bubble envelope, tape that sucker up and send it off. It arrives about a day later than Priority mail would and a few days before ground. And it's always cheaper than any other option for the weight. And if it weighs less than 13oz you can put it in a blue mail box.

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Third: If the item weighs more than 1lb and is not breakable, try to use a flat rate bubble envelope. This is always the cheapest option if you can fit your item into it and it weighs more than a pound. Perfect size for most inflatable sleeping pads and probably some UL trekking pole tents, and not terrible if someone's buying a lot of clothes. If you want to be tricky and you want to mail something heavy that needs to be in a box, you can put the box inside one of these envelopes and pay the $7.55 for this instead of the ~$11-15 for regular priority mail.

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Fourth: If you bring your own box, regular priority service is $10.86 for a box under 12x12x12 under 2 lbs which isn't bad. Once you get over 2 lbs though you are better served by a medium priority box which is capped at $12.80 for any weight and distance. You can fit almost anything UL related into one of the medium boxes. There is a long box and a tall box.

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Fifth: Probably only relevant for shipping a backpack, retail ground service doesn't care about size within reason. Avoid this otherwise unless you are sending something really heavy, something locally, or something huge. For most things, priority flat rate products are almost always cheaper and are twice as fast. In the 3-4 lb range there's a chance that this will be the cheapest option depending how far away the package is going but usually it's within a dollar of the flat rate box you could use instead, and it's sometimes cheaper to do flat rate if you're shipping far away! You can check with the rate chart if you want: https://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/Notice123.htm#_c052 and then you calculate the zone with this: https://postcalc.usps.com/domesticzonechart

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FedEx can be good for flat rate boxes in sizes that USPS doesn't have. I struggle to see any reason to use UPS though that might just be because I don't have a UPS store near me.

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tl;dr First Class mail if it's less than 1 lb, flat rate bubble mailer if it's > 1 lb and fits, bring your own box and ship priority mail if under 2 lbs, priority mail medium box if it fits and is over 2 lbs, and then consider retail ground if none of those options work.

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