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| | | Author: | Kefir101Awesome  | | Posted: | Jan 18, 2022 22:39 | | Subject: | How to ship Lego? | | Viewed: | 205 times | | Topic: | Help | |
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| Hi everyone,
I'm a first-time seller, and so I'm wondering how exactly do I ship my
Lego. Are there any thorough guides on the Bricklink shipping process? Can I
just put some lego in a zip lock bag in a letter, write the address, and send
it? Do I need any barcodes, are there premade stickers/stamps I'm supposed
to add, etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated
Thanks,
Kefir101Awesome
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| | | | | Author: | Brickitty | | Posted: | Jan 18, 2022 23:12 | | Subject: | Re: How to ship Lego? | | Viewed: | 71 times | | Topic: | Help | |
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| In Help, Kefir101Awesome writes:
| | I'm a first-time seller, and so I'm wondering how exactly do I ship my
Lego. Are there any thorough guides on the Bricklink shipping process?
|
Do a search on YouTube -- there are plenty of tutorials there, though every
seller will have a slightly different method depending on what works for them.
| | Can I just put some lego in a zip lock bag in a letter, write the address,
and send it?
|
Nope, not a good idea. For one, you need to protect the parts, so you'll
want to purchase padded bubble envelopes or boxes. For another, the regular letter
rate is only for paper/flat objects, and those items can't be thicker than
1/4 inch, and they go through rolling machines at the post office that will push
out 3D objects.
| | Do I need any barcodes, are there premade stickers/stamps I'm supposed
to add, etc.
|
Stamps won't suffice. You'll need to send via the USPS First Class Package
rate or the USPS Priority rate, and your buyers will appreciate tracking info,
which comes for free with both of those. To that end, you'll need to either
1) Go to the post office to mail packages or 2) Print your own labels at home
using PayPal's shipping service or a third-party shipping service like Pirate
Ship. I recommend shipping through PayPal, as the vast majority of sellers and
buyers prefer using that for transactions. It's pretty difficult to run a
Bricklink store without a PayPal account. Once you receive the payment, there'll
be a shipping address attached, and you can create and print a label for the
package with just a few clicks or you can write it down and go to the post office.
Here's a short list of items related to shipping that you'll probably
want on hand before you start selling. You can charge a handling charge on top
of the shipping cost to cover these items -- many sellers charge between
$0.50 and $1.00 per order for handling.
1) Bubble mailers and boxes -- you can get free Priority Mail boxes from
USPS, but not all buyers want to pay the expensive Priority costs, so you should
probably have other packaging for First Class shipping (orders below 1 pound
in total weight, which most are)
2) Some kind of padding, such as bubble wrap, styrofoam packing pellets, or crumpled
paper
3) Ziplock bags, as you mentioned
4) Tape and scissors
5) A scale and a printer, unless you plan on mailing everything at the post office
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| | | | | | | Author: | Kefir101Awesome | | Posted: | Jan 18, 2022 23:25 | | Subject: | Re: How to ship Lego? | | Viewed: | 66 times | | Topic: | Help | |
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| In Help, Brickitty writes:
| | In Help, Kefir101Awesome writes:
| | I'm a first-time seller, and so I'm wondering how exactly do I ship my
Lego. Are there any thorough guides on the Bricklink shipping process?
|
Do a search on YouTube -- there are plenty of tutorials there, though every
seller will have a slightly different method depending on what works for them.
| | Can I just put some lego in a zip lock bag in a letter, write the address,
and send it?
|
Nope, not a good idea. For one, you need to protect the parts, so you'll
want to purchase padded bubble envelopes or boxes. For another, the regular letter
rate is only for paper/flat objects, and those items can't be thicker than
1/4 inch, and they go through rolling machines at the post office that will push
out 3D objects.
| | Do I need any barcodes, are there premade stickers/stamps I'm supposed
to add, etc.
|
|
This is so helpful! Thank you so much Brickitty! Off to the post office.
| | Stamps won't suffice. You'll need to send via the USPS First Class Package
rate or the USPS Priority rate, and your buyers will appreciate tracking info,
which comes for free with both of those. To that end, you'll need to either
1) Go to the post office to mail packages or 2) Print your own labels at home
using PayPal's shipping service or a third-party shipping service like Pirate
Ship. I recommend shipping through PayPal, as the vast majority of sellers and
buyers prefer using that for transactions. It's pretty difficult to run a
Bricklink store without a PayPal account. Once you receive the payment, there'll
be a shipping address attached, and you can create and print a label for the
package with just a few clicks or you can write it down and go to the post office.
Here's a short list of items related to shipping that you'll probably
want on hand before you start selling. You can charge a handling charge on top
of the shipping cost to cover these items -- many sellers charge between
$0.50 and $1.00 per order for handling.
1) Bubble mailers and boxes -- you can get free Priority Mail boxes from
USPS, but not all buyers want to pay the expensive Priority costs, so you should
probably have other packaging for First Class shipping (orders below 1 pound
in total weight, which most are)
2) Some kind of padding, such as bubble wrap, styrofoam packing pellets, or crumpled
paper
3) Ziplock bags, as you mentioned
4) Tape and scissors
5) A scale and a printer, unless you plan on mailing everything at the post office
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| | | | | Author: | Shiny_Stuff | | Posted: | Jan 19, 2022 00:03 | | Subject: | Re: How to ship Lego? | | Viewed: | 79 times | | Topic: | Help | |
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| In Help, Kefir101Awesome writes:
| | Hi everyone,
I'm a first-time seller, and so I'm wondering how exactly do I ship my
Lego. Are there any thorough guides on the Bricklink shipping process? Can I
just put some lego in a zip lock bag in a letter, write the address, and send
it? Do I need any barcodes, are there premade stickers/stamps I'm supposed
to add, etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated
Thanks,
Kefir101Awesome
|
Welcome to BrickLink and Good Luck with your new BL shop.
One way to find out how to pack and ship Lego is to place a few orders with different
sellers here on BrickLink. Then you can see what types of packing materials
and shipping containers that other sellers use.
There are plenty of sources of this information around -- on FaceBook discussion
groups, YouTube videos, Instagram photos, and general Internet searches.
In general, it is NOT acceptable to use regular plain paper envelopes to ship
Lego. The best items to use are bubble mailers of various sizes or small boxes.
Lego almost always needs to be shipped as packages (parcels) using USPS Parcel
Rates and proper packaging. The Post Office has rules for envelope thickness
that must be followed which almost always excludes stuff like Lego parts. Plus,
the post office processes regular envelopes with high-speed sorting equipment
that can and does destroy Lego parts and rip open envelopes that have Lego parts
inside. There are very few exceptions to this.
The USPS does offer free shipping supplies of many sizes and types that you can
use for a lot of BrickLink orders. Some are available at post offices and even
more selections can be ordered and delivered for to you for FREE.
https://store.usps.com/store/results/shipping-supplies/_/N-7d0v8v#content
One of the most important and useful tools to own is a digital postal scale.
This way, you can get the exact weight of your BL orders to determine the best
shipping options. When you know the exact and correct shipping weight, you can
invoice your buyers for the correct amount of shipping costs (if you choose to
have customers pay for shipping) and, most importantly, you can determine how
much it will cost to ship each package.
Since BrickLink requires collection of sales tax, collection of payments must
be done online using Paypal or Stripe. Because of this, using electronic
postage will likely be your best option for shipping your orders. There are
even third-party vendors of electronic postage that offer significant discounts
at little or no cost to use. One of the most popular is PirateShip dot com.
Packing and shipping BrickLink orders is not something you can learn all about
in one day. It could take weeks or months to learn just the basics. Since every
BL order is different and all have different attributes like volume (size),
weight, and destination, you have to be ready to choose from more than one single
method to get your orders properly and safely to your buyers. You will learn
more as you process more orders and hopefully you won't have too many problems
or unhappy customers.
____
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| | | | | | | Author: | hkl22 | | Posted: | Jan 19, 2022 12:10 | | Subject: | Re: How to ship Lego? | | Viewed: | 41 times | | Topic: | Help | |
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| In Help, Shiny_Stuff writes:
| | In Help, Kefir101Awesome writes:
| | Hi everyone,
I'm a first-time seller, and so I'm wondering how exactly do I ship my
Lego. Are there any thorough guides on the Bricklink shipping process? Can I
just put some lego in a zip lock bag in a letter, write the address, and send
it? Do I need any barcodes, are there premade stickers/stamps I'm supposed
to add, etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated
Thanks,
Kefir101Awesome
|
Welcome to BrickLink and Good Luck with your new BL shop.
One way to find out how to pack and ship Lego is to place a few orders with different
sellers here on BrickLink. Then you can see what types of packing materials
and shipping containers that other sellers use.
There are plenty of sources of this information around -- on FaceBook discussion
groups, YouTube videos, Instagram photos, and general Internet searches.
In general, it is NOT acceptable to use regular plain paper envelopes to ship
Lego. The best items to use are bubble mailers of various sizes or small boxes.
Lego almost always needs to be shipped as packages (parcels) using USPS Parcel
Rates and proper packaging. The Post Office has rules for envelope thickness
that must be followed which almost always excludes stuff like Lego parts. Plus,
the post office processes regular envelopes with high-speed sorting equipment
that can and does destroy Lego parts and rip open envelopes that have Lego parts
inside. There are very few exceptions to this.
The USPS does offer free shipping supplies of many sizes and types that you can
use for a lot of BrickLink orders. Some are available at post offices and even
more selections can be ordered and delivered for to you for FREE.
https://store.usps.com/store/results/shipping-supplies/_/N-7d0v8v#content
One of the most important and useful tools to own is a digital postal scale.
This way, you can get the exact weight of your BL orders to determine the best
shipping options. When you know the exact and correct shipping weight, you can
invoice your buyers for the correct amount of shipping costs (if you choose to
have customers pay for shipping) and, most importantly, you can determine how
much it will cost to ship each package.
Since BrickLink requires collection of sales tax, collection of payments must
be done online using Paypal or Stripe. Because of this, using electronic
postage will likely be your best option for shipping your orders. There are
even third-party vendors of electronic postage that offer significant discounts
at little or no cost to use. One of the most popular is PirateShip dot com.
Packing and shipping BrickLink orders is not something you can learn all about
in one day. It could take weeks or months to learn just the basics. Since every
BL order is different and all have different attributes like volume (size),
weight, and destination, you have to be ready to choose from more than one single
method to get your orders properly and safely to your buyers. You will learn
more as you process more orders and hopefully you won't have too many problems
or unhappy customers.
____
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I looked on the USPS link and saw those free shipping supplies, and have a couple
questions. When you get those boxes, do you have to use them for priority mail?
Or could I get those boxes for free and ship cheaply with pirate ship? In other
words, once you get those free shipping boxes, what should you do to ensure the
cheapest shipping?
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| | | | | | | | | Author: | DPB | | Posted: | Jan 19, 2022 12:46 | | Subject: | Re: How to ship Lego? | | Viewed: | 36 times | | Topic: | Help | |
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| Simply put, no. Those are ONLY for use with Priority US Mail, which starts at
a much higher rate than "cheap" or First-Class shipping. They most likely
will refuse to accept the shipment if it only carries first class postage or
will hit it with "postage due" status to the receiver.
First thing I would recommend has already been stated, go and get yourself some
6x10 bubble mailers (or even slightly smaller). I found a nice small supply of
cheap shipping boxes on other sites for sale. I started by buying 25 6x4x4 brown
fold up shipping boxes. They were maybe 30 cents each?
As business grew, I branched out and started buying other sizes. I also found
a few great "auctions" where they were selling an assortment, in one lot. Check
your local online markets for folks getting rid of shipping supplies, as their
interest faded and they want to pass along cheap supplies.
Good Luck.
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| | | | | | | | | Author: | peregrinator | | Posted: | Jan 19, 2022 12:47 | | Subject: | Re: How to ship Lego? | | Viewed: | 29 times | | Topic: | Help | |
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| In Help, hkl22 writes:
| | I looked on the USPS link and saw those free shipping supplies, and have a couple
questions. When you get those boxes, do you have to use them for priority mail?
|
Yes.
| | Or could I get those boxes for free and ship cheaply with pirate ship? In other
words, once you get those free shipping boxes, what should you do to ensure the
cheapest shipping?
|
You can still use Pirate Ship to ship Priority Mail with those boxes and the
rates are much better than the retail rates. Depending on the box you might qualify
for the Priority Mail Cubic rate which - as far as I know - isn't even available
at retail.
You can't use the free boxes, then turn around and ship First Class. Even
if you turn the box inside out it still says "Priority Mail" on it.
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USA, California
