PayPal Shipping Labels: Necessary?

Mugenmidget

Apparently as an eBay seller you can purchase shipping labels through PayPal and use these on the package you're about to send out.

What exactly are the legitimacy of these labels? Would it be okay to just take the relevant package to the post office, send it to the buyer, and pick "Mark as Shipped" from my eBay control panel? Is this PayPal shipping label business really necessary at all?

Deusfaux

not necessary, just helpful especially in situations where you haev a bunch of stuff to keep organized.

AbsoluteZero

Personally, I prefer to just go to the damn post office.

After you send it out, you can pick "mark as shipped."

Get shipment confirmation or something like that so you can have a little slip of paper and a tracking number to prove you shipped it. It's only like 60 cents or so.

Mugenmidget

AbsoluteZero wrote: »

Personally, I prefer to just go to the damn post office.

After you send it out, you can pick "mark as shipped."

Get shipment confirmation or something like that so you can have a little slip of paper and a tracking number to prove you shipped it. It's only like 60 cents or so.

Alright, cool, that's what I wanted to hear. Thanks a bunch.

EggyToast

I've used them. The only problem is that there's a billion and a half shipping options now, and everything seems to be weight/dimension based. Is this box 4.85 or 5.65 or 8.05? Is it flat rate or priority rate? Is first class cheaper?

Doing it via paypal is great if you quote a flat shipping rate in your auction, or if you really KNOW how much something costs to ship. You just print out the label, tape it to the box, and voila! Just chuck it in a post office box and it's done.

If you only ship stuff once in a while, it can be kind of a pain to figure out all the shipping rates and dimensions for USPS, especially without a scale or a stockpile of USPS boxes. In those cases, it's often much easier to just take it to the post office. That's, of course, contingent on the quality of your local PO.

limester816

I find it really helpful, you just put in the carrier you want, ups, usps, or fedex (i think), the weight and measurments, and you can print out a shipping label that you just tape onto the box. Then you just drop the box off, no lines.

saint2e

I've tried the shipping label though PayPal a couple of times, and about 50% of the time, the Post Office scales are different than the one I used for the printing label, and I ended up wasting money on the PayPal print labels. This is because the UK Post Office wouldn't supplement the additional cost with another stamp or whatever, which is a bit dodgy.

So I prefer just going down to the damn post office and avoiding that hassle.