Learning how to easily use Ebay for selling your items doesn’t have to be as daunting as you think. There are several ways that you can save some money on your shippng costs. First, ebay has some built in features for using the USPS and UPS as couriers for your sold items with a built in wizard which can help you calculate your shipping costs. It helps to have a basic understanding of how this process works and the tools you’ll need to make it work in your favor.

First step: Acquire a postage scale. There are several on the market, or you might come across a few at garage sales and even online at ebay itself. They come in two types: manual scales (with manual adjustment) and digital scales (with automatic adjustment). Manual scales are usually fine for shipping small items and boxes under five pounds, but if you’re shipping items that weigh a little more, you’ll need a large scale. I use a Pelouze digital shipping scale but any kind will work. Food scales will also work. Mine weighs in both meteric and US ounces/pounds.

Second step: Stockpile shipping supplies. The USPS has a wonderful flat rate shipping service in which you can ship small items in their priority and express mail boxes for a low price. One of the perks for using priority mail flat rate shipping is free shipping supplies, such as boxes, envelopes, labels and tape. You can pick up small supplies of them for free at your local post office, or you can order them online from www.usps.com and have them delivered to your home for free. For parcel post shipping and UPS shipping, start gathering together small and medium sized boxes, break them down so you can store them flat, and save them.

Third step: Estimating your postage costs. This is as simple as placing your ebay items inside of the most appropreate sized box and weighing it on the scale. Typically, i’ll add two ounces to any box weight to help cover packing materials, tape and labels and give myself a little bit of a coushin. For larger boxes or heavier items, you might also need a tape measurer to enter in the dimensions of the box. Round up in your measurements.

Fourth step: After the item sells, print out your postage. You can print your postage through ebay/paypal’s links to the pitney bowes postage printing system from funds right out of your paypal account OR you can sign up for online postage printing account directly at www.usps.com or www.UPS.com to save some money. Both couriers offer discounts for printing your postage from home. You can print them out on your home printer on plain paper or on printing labels for less than the postage will cost you at the post office or a shipping store. You can even request a pickup for your items for free directly from your home, so you don’t have to spend gas driving to the shipper. As a bonus, the postage you print from home doesn’t have the postage price paid on the shipping label anywhere, so your customers won’t know the difference. The savings can be more than a few dollars on larger items which adds to your bottom line.

Several more money saving shipping tips are coming in our ebay shippers resource e-book. Stay tuned!