hey guys this is shane and today we're
going to be talking about
how to ship and package books
for sell or resell on ebay using
media mail u.s postal service media mail
i'm going to go over the kind of the
major strategies you have
your supplies things that i found that
really make it easy
make it safe protects the books and and
and is cost effective so with that
let's just jump right in um you know
kind of the supplies that you need
first things you need with your shipping
books is a nice digital scale
i got this on amazon several years ago
for shipped for 20 or 25 bucks
it is um accurate to like a tenth of an
ounce
uh this is the first thing you you need
now
you can buy them where they actually go
into your label maker i don't do that i
just weigh it
and then enter it in on like the ebay
cell screen but this
this alone will save you effort time
and money getting an accurate weight the
reason that's true
is because on media mail you
pay by the pound one pound or less as
of today february 2021
you can do one pound or less for 289
you can do two pounds or less for 345
then for three pounds or less that goes
up to 401
so for example you take just a regular
um book this is a standard size blake
crouch dark matter if you haven't read
it awesome book
you take a standard standard book you
know it's not
super big but this is just something you
know 350 pages
regular edition this book is going to
weigh
1.3 ounces so you basically have
you're in this 3.45 range just
that's the cheapest you're gonna go for
the book itself so that gives me
13 ounces to play with on shipping to
stay
in this this cost range so
i look at this i like this to you know
know where your price price points are
every um everyone goes up 50 60 cents
you know from one one tier to the next
by weight on media mail with the post
office
you think 50 cents that doesn't matter
well if if you're selling
a 10 book 50 cents is 5
so you're you're swinging your your
potential profit
at least 5 so paying attention to this
over time when you
sell you know 100 books it makes makes a
difference on your profit margins
so uh with that intro you've got two
major
two major ways to ship books one is in
the poly bags and the others with boxes
i personally do not use poly bags
i i started out that way anything that
was ever
damaged in shipment was due to the poly
bag
and i as a collector or as a book buyer
i hate when i get a book in the mail
and it's just stuffed in a poly bag now
i know there are strategies to put
things around the book inside the poly
bag but you know that starts to get into
more effort for me
but you know people take a book like
this so just stuff in a poly bag fold it
over tape it
you can get edge damages corner damages
i don't like it i've even had polybags
get cut by the on the conveyor belts and
people
see me pictures where the bag was sliced
and sliced into the
into the hardcover of the book um that's
why i
ever all the books i sell in my store i
use
boxes for everything so that kind of
gets us into
you know that's what i'm going to be
talking about how to ship with boxes how
to do that
you're trying to balance three things
you're trying to balance your cost
that's your total cost of shipping that
means the postal
postal price and the supplies you're
trying to balance
the the security the safety of the book
you know how to maintain
its integrity and not damage the book so
reduce damage
and then you're trying to make it as
easy as possible for your time
so those are the three things you're
trying to balance and and i get it
polybags can be cheaper
you can argue they're easier just
throwing them in there but the damage
potential part of it just rules that out
for me
so i use boxes so what kind of boxes do
you need
these getting into the supplies i
personally
use two boxes for probably
95 of my sales the first
is a 10 by 8 by three
this this is a great size the other size
is a 12 by nine by three
again i sell quite a few books and
90 maybe 95 of my books
will fit in these two boxes so you don't
have to have a
whole lot of boxes i different styles or
sizes
depending on what you sell of course so
one thing when you look for
is on a box
kind of the it's an edge crush test
there's this
23 pound edge crush test and then
there's a thicker box that's a 32
pound ect for regular small books i
prefer the 23 because
it is uh plenty safe it's
it it offers support when you pack it
you still get the benefits of the box
but it reduces your weight i usually
just whichever's they're going to be
usually cheaper as well
my sources for boxes i will i will buy
those on amazon
i'll buy them on ebay typically
something like uline their shipping is
so expensive it's no good
every once in a while you can find like
staples or office depot
they'll be running a deal buy one get
one free free shipping over fifty
dollars i'll usually order these
um a hundred two hundred at a time i've
got easy storage space
um in my in my garage for these um
my cost for a box is typically about
42 cents on this size uh
i actually would wish they had some two
inch ones but it's funny if you go
to the like the 10 by 8 by 2 or the 12
by 9 by two
the price goes up they can be a dollar a
piece 80 cents a piece i typically try
to keep my box cost
and all of my supplies for shipping cost
uh around 50 cents total so uh
i can typically find these in quantity
of 100
and that 42 to 46 cents range sometimes
a little cheaper you know with free
shipping um
but but that fits into what i charge i
charge
four dollars flat shipping rate on books
so
the book like we said the blake crouch
book that was a
a one pound three ounce book it's going
to be in this one to two
uh pound one or two pound range anyway
so it's already 345 but i have 13 ounces
it will ship if you if we watch it
it will ship in a 10 by 3 8 by 3 box
and i'll i'll do it later but you can
see that it fits completely over this
book
this uh 10 by 3
eight by three box is only
four point eight ounces that's five
ounces i
had 13 ounces to play with before i go
to the next price range
if i look at the car the weight of a
12 by nine by three it is
this one is uh make sure it's not only
something
this one is uh a little over six six
point one ounces
so i have room for packing to keep it
under that two pound limit
so boxes those are my two primary boxes
uh it will handle paperbacks
books like this now a bigger book
like uh this old this uh reproduction
montgomery board catalog
it's not going to fit in the 10 by eight
by three but it will fit
in this 12 by nine by three if i put it
over it
it's completely over it um so you can
see
that's a pretty large size book that's
gonna fit in that 12 by nine by three
that you can see how that covers a lot
now what do you have a bigger book
i got this kind of coffee table though
now in that case
what i go with is a flat mailer
i keep some of these ebay i actually
emailed the ebay packaging store because
we get credits in our store you know
and ask them about flat boxes and
shortly after they added this one
and this is a 12 by 12 a multi-fold box
a lot of times the multi-fold boxes if
you buy them they're more expensive
but but one like this and i'll show you
how i wrap it later but
it has so much real estate with 12 by
12. you can see it fits in there
you can wrap it and then fold around it
and it's safe so
that's kind of the boxes why the two the
two that i picked
uh have some of these flat ones i will
keep
a larger box a 12 by eight by three some
of these so this until this ebay box i
got in my in my store as part of my
material supply credit in case i sell
sets i like to have a few of these
um i pack packing the boxes
i love newsprint if i travel if i'm
getting the usa today
i'll save these i use these the other
is tissue paper um you can get tissue
paper or something like at costco
around christmas it's really it's like
six or seven bucks for a lot of sheets
also there's tissue paper in the ebay
store
um and then the the shipping credits
that you get if you have a store
quarterly it has ebay on it i'll load up
on that
you know once you know every six months
or so that's what i'll spend my all my
credit on is tissue paper
and then every once in a while like i
ran into some packing material
at a thrift store for a couple bucks and
i see something like that obviously i
picked that up so
again keeping your costs down um
tape you got to have tape to tape the
boxes right
you know you can use a transparent tape
like a duct tape or something like that
that's fine
but again if you've got your ebay store
supplies uh you can buy the ebay tape or
get this
as part of your free materials that's
what i do i will tell you a little trick
i use
uh on this tape like duct tape you know
it'll this is the duck
brand it'll come with its own little
dispenser it's horrible
this tape is thin it folds back in and
and glues to itself i hate it but
scotch tape i found that the scotch tape
holder
is the best the way the teeth are it
holds the tape
doesn't matter how thin the tape is so
i've got a couple of these that i bought
years ago excuse me
of the scotch tape the scotch tape's
long gone but i kept the holder and use
it
because i love the way you know some
people use the big tape guns
i love the way this holder does so
that's another one of my uh
i guess a little trick that i use that
makes my life easier so with that
let me show you how a wrap looks all
right
so let's start off with this uh 12 by
nine by three
stand up here and i'll show you first
thing i do take my 12.93
here's the big book i'll make sure that
it
that it's gonna fit it does all right
so i basically take the bottom of the
book
put a little piece of tape on one side
a little piece of tape on the other side
then i'll put
one depending on the weight of the book
two pieces of tape on the box all right
that's the start of the box
then i'll take my newsprint my tissue
paper
whatever i'm using depending on how
heavy it is if it's newsprint i'll take
one piece if it's if it's tissue paper
i'll take two pieces
put it in i fold
and then on this this stage what i do
is i fold under and there's a reason i
fold under
the reason is to put extra especially if
i'm using two sheets
uh that puts a little extra there
i put it straight down in the box okay
so now it's cradled do i stop
no what i do so i'll take these
i'll do them into sheets like this
i try to put it around the edges
wedging it in do a couple of those
do it on the other side that way it
gives it a cushion
uh around the book make sure you don't
bend down onto the dust jackets
if they have them then i'll take a
couple of pieces
them up like this
and put on top so i'll show you now i've
got this book
that's in it has the protection around
the sides
and then these go on top
i fold down you can you can feel it
getting tight
but then before i tape i always hold it
and i shake it and make sure that it's
sturdy because in shipment
it will go around that's where you get
damages at that point
again i'll put small pieces on the
corner to give me something to hold my
tape to
then one depending on the quality of my
tape
i may put a second one that box is ready
to weigh
and print out my shipping label put the
shipping label right on top
this book turns out to be totally
shipped just under three pounds two
pounds 15 ounces so i'm going to stay in
that price zone
all right let's do uh let me show you
another one with the uh
the the the ten by eight by threes let's
say i've sold a couple paperbacks
again i'll start off this way
see how that scotch tape holder does it
holds it perfect
now look at this look what's interesting
here with a 10 by 8 by three
you can take a paperback and you can
you can put a couple paperbacks there
and you have enough room to actually you
could put four paperbacks
in a ten by eight three by three or
a book like this trees as good citizens
it's a little bit smaller
the the dark matter book will fit in
here as well
if you look see it's going to fit
or something a little smaller still you
know a
full-size book fits in and gives you
more space
so on this one let's use uh tissue paper
and i'll just
show you what i mean by taking the two
sheets of tissue paper
i take two maybe three sheets i like
this because then
i fold it all under
and that gives me extra padding with the
paper
on the bottom side okay so
the bottoms goes in now see all that if
you don't put it around the edges
hear it but then
take the tissue paper i actually prefer
the newsprint but
you know it's harder to get use nobody
gets newspaper anymore
so i'm taking this
and i'm going around the edges the ends
can you see how it did there now it's
not moving around
take a couple sheets
so you can see how it's totally packed
now
take a couple sheets put it on top fold
it
check it hey that thing is solid now
i am ready to do my final
tape
that one's ready for label all right
let's look at this big boy
gotta have a big big box for this that's
where i love these multi-fold flat ones
so same way i'll take a couple of sheets
of tissue paper maybe this one i'll take
three
because what you're trying to do is
you're trying to protect the dust jacket
and the corners right
so again fold it like this
and go under like this now
it goes in
and you can see you know you can you
take that and you fold it down
it just goes right on top you hold
now sometimes i might put a little piece
of paper on the edges to keep it
uh most of the time you don't need it
hold it this way
i would use these these boxes like this
more but they tend to be more expensive
um see nice
nice holds it has room around the
corners
again i'll put some tape to hold it
and then i go all the way around
just how i do it just so the tape didn't
hold or doesn't go
on these as well just because they're
kind of spring-loaded i typically
put some tape on the edges of these
there just to keep gaps
just keep it tight on the book so it
doesn't slide around
that's ready get a little lip there i
usually put the label
on the flat side that's it
that's uh that's how i ship books
it's uh i keep my cost typically
any of my boxes my tape costs between
what i pay for it
and what i um you know get for free on
the ebay
stores uh as part of my subscription i
guess it's not free it's just a benefit
of your of your subscription
um i will keep my costs for supplies
under 50 cents
if i'm shipping media mail a regular
sized book i've only got
it's 345 so my total cost
is under four dollars i charge a flat
four dollar shipping
if it's a really heavy book i might
charge five
or do a calculated price but the great
thing too about mediamail is that
that matter where you're shipping united
states it's all the same cost you don't
get all this zone stuff like you do with
priority
best value in town so that's it i hope
you found that to be useful remember
balance your how secure you have the
book the cost effectiveness of your
strategy
and all your supplies and then how much
time it it takes you to
to do it so that's how i do it be nurses
know how
you do it what what you find i look
forward to comments and hopefully found
that helpful and
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so all right with that
talk to you later have a good one bye