Cheap USPS and UPS Sports Card Shipping

When you sell a card for several hundred dollars, you are happy to pay $5 for shipping and count the profits. But a lot of the sales are far lower, and high shipping fees can cut deeply into the margin and put a chill on your card sales. Increased shipping rates can also make smaller deals utterly unprofitable. Therefore, many sellers are looking for cheap USPS and UPS sports card shipping options.

If you do not use a high-quality delivery method, you may face bad reviews and returns. Therefore, you will have to strike a balance between cost-efficiency and delivery quality.

With all of these factors to keep in mind, do not start selling cards online until you have worked out which shipping option is suitable for your needs.

However, do not fear! There are good alternatives to paying the regular shipping price.

Cheap USPS and UPS Sports Card Shipping Within eBay

When you sell an item on eBay and use their system to ship it, you gain access to discounted shipping.  It may not be the best rate, but it will certainly be better than the standard rates offered by USPS or UPS.

Besides saving you money, passing these shipping discounts on to the customer can be an effective marketing tool.  Buyers appreciate fair shipping prices and will be attracted to working with Sellers who are offer them.

You should also set up combined shipping discounts for your sales on eBay.  This offers customers who place multiple orders with you at the same time a discount.  Opt into combined shipping by enabling it on your account.  There is no reason not to do this – most buyers will ask you to combine shipping manually if you don’t set it up to be handled automatically.

High Volume Cheap USPS and UPS Sports Card Shipping

If you regularly sell and ship sportscards, you may qualify as a high-volume shipper.  Shipping companies are likely to provide you with sweetheart deals if you are a heavy-duty shipper.  If you’re shipping a few packages per day, it’s worth having a conversation with your preferred provider to see what might be available.

Cheap USPS Sports Card Shipping

The USPS is generally cheaper than its private company alternatives, such as FedEx and UPS for packages under five pounds. Most sellers use USPS first class, which costs about $3-4 for packages under a pound and offers tracking services.

Sending through USPS can be even less costly if you avoid paying their standard rates for shipping.

If you ship regularly, take advantage of the options USPS offers for small businesses. For example, you can sign up for a free shipping kit and receive complimentary boxes. Many card businesses use the USPS Click N Ship program, which allows you to choose different shipping options and skip the Post Office lines.

But what if you are not a high-volume seller and only occasionally ship cards? You still have some cost-effective options. If you have made your sales through eBay and/or PayPal, do not pay the full postage costs. Instead, print the appropriate labels from within their backend to get significant discounts.

One of the more controversial points regarding card shipping is whether using a plain white envelope (PWE) is a good idea. While you certainly do not want to send valuable cards through this primitive method, this is probably the most efficient and cost-effective way to send those low-end cards that are worth less than the cost of higher-end shipping.

More recently, eBay introduced the Standard Envelope as a money-saving device.

For shipments of between 10-100 cards, a USPS first-class package is a suitable package. Meanwhile, a padded flat-rate envelope will hold a bit more than 300 cards. if you are shipping larger numbers of cards, try a flat rate game box that can handle over 500 when packed correctly.

Remember that you can save money on packages by ordering free USPS/eBay shipping boxes marked for either priority mail. You can order them to your home for free.

Shipping PayPal Purchases

When you sell items using PayPal, always use the Goods and Services (G&S) option rather than the Friends and Family one. One reason to do so is to take advantage of their discounted shipping rates, which are only available when using the G&S option.

Printing labels on PayPal is cost-effective and time-efficient. The website saves all the relevant information and immediately provides you with a tracking number. Most importantly, the rates you receive with a PayPal label are consistently lower as they charge a commercial shipping rate. Using PayPal labels saves you time going to the Post Office as well.

Here is how you print PayPal labels for your packages:

• Log into your PayPal account and go to the activity section
• When you find the relevant transaction, select the ship option
• Choose the preferred carrier
• Enter your shipping information and make sure it’s correct
• Now click on calculate shipping before pressing confirm and pay

You may think that you can only use PayPal labels if your customer paid using that format. However, you can also use this option for other transactions by creating a PayPal UPS account and linking it to a regular UPS account.

You can do so through the following simple steps:

• Log into your PayPal account and click the profile
• Now go into my selling tools
• Click the update link next to shipping preferences
• Now go to add new or existing UPS account information
• Enter a valid UPS account and click continue
• Confirm your information and press continue again
• Now click I agree for the shipping agreement (you should probably read it too)

You can also save on packaging materials by purchasing them cheaply through PayPal.

Cheap UPS Sports Card Shipping

UPS is a relatively cost-efficient option for packages over 5 pounds. In particular, shipping through UPS directly can make sense if you are a high-volume user. While they do not necessarily advertise their best high-volume rates, you can reach a representative 24/7 at 1-800-742-5877 and negotiate with them.

Generally if you are sending mostly 5lb and under packages, the discounts that your PayPal UPS account offers will be very good.  However for larger boxes, a UPS representative will likely offer you much better rates if you do meaningful volume.

You can also link up your UPS account with eBay and get good savings that way. UPS will offer up to 48% off on ground shipments and over 50% on 2nd Day Air service in some cases. All you need to do is print your labels through eBay to enjoy these savings.

Shipping Through FedEx

While FedEx is not usually the most cost-effective carrier, it is often the fastest and can be useful when you need to ship cards quickly. It is also an excellent company for shipments above 50 pounds. In general, the company is making efforts to attract small business owners and has instated a Small Business Center which includes a good rewards program.

Be that as it may, FedEx is not the best option for cards. Most sellers do not sell massively heavy cards or need speedy delivery. And there is another problem. Unfortunately, the cooperation between eBay and FedEx has been anything but smooth. Sellers have consistently complained about issues with this option.

Shipping with Pirateship.Com

The website Pirateship.com can get you lower rates on their shipping because they use cubic rates. These prices are only available to high-volume sellers, and the website uses the large amount of traffic it sends to move packages at discounted rates. Most importantly, it is a free service.

Pirateship.com also integrates effortlessly with eBay. Once you have a Pirateship account, take the following steps:

• Log into your pirateship.com account, and go into settings
• The enter the integrations field
• From there, click on connect new source
• Pick eBay and authorize the connection

Also, Pirateship does not display the shipping rates to your customers. Therefore, you can choose to pass on the savings to them…or pocket them!

For more on how to use Pirateship.com, check out this tutorial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIYDUKZTWaw

The Bottom Line On Cheap USPS and UPS Sports Card Shipping

We recommend that you talk directly to the carriers to see who can off you a better deal if you are a high-volume shipper. If not, use eBay or PayPal to print all of your labels to save money. If you made a deal involving neither of those companies, Pirateship.com is easily your most cost-effective option.