Setting Up Your Packing and
Shipping Center
Your office is the place where you handle all your eBay-related
paperwork and online activities. It is not where
you store the items you have for sale or where you pack them up for shipping.
You'll need to set up separate areas for inventory storage and for packing.
We'll discuss inventory storage last. Right now, let's focus on
setting up an efficient packing and shipping center for your eBay
business.
Finding the Space
The first thing
to consider is where you'll be doing your
packing. The place you choose depends to some degree on what kinds of items
you're selling. If you're selling relatively small items, you can get by with
less space. If you're selling really large items, you'll need a lot of space.
You'll have to do the math.
However much space you need, you'll want this space to be
dedicated to the task at hand. If you're shipping out dozens (or hundreds) of
items every week, you don't want to have to assemble and disassemble your
packing area every time you sell an item. It's best to have everything set up
and ready to go, permanently.
What type of space do you need? Well, you'll need a large, flat
areasome kind of tabletop or countertop, large enough for you to spread out your
boxes or envelopes as you pack. You'll also need space to store your packing
supplies, and additional space nearby for your packing boxes and envelopes. Then
you'll need some sort of staging area to temporarily store your packed boxes
until they're shipped. Again, depending on the size of what you're selling, this
could amount to a fair amount of space.
Where should this space be? For most of us, it has to be
someplace in the house. Many eBayers carve out a part of their garage for this
operation. I use my kitchen. (I'm not much of a cook, so I might as well use my
kitchen for something productive!) In any case, the space needs to be large
enough but also easily accessible for the task at hand.
Essential Supplies
Your packing center needs to include storage space for the
supplies you use for packing your eBay items. You need to keep these basic
packing supplies on hand so that you're not constantly running off to the office
supply store every time one of your auctions closes. These items should always
be available and easily accessed.
What items are we talking about? Consider the following
items:
-
Packing tape (both clear and brown)
-
Bubble wrap
-
Styrofoam peanuts or old
newspapers
-
Scissors
-
Box cutter or similar kind of knife
-
Postal scale
-
Black magic marker
-
Shipping labels
-
Return address labels
-
Other necessary labelsFragile, This End Up, and so on
-
Labels or forms provided by your shipping service of choice
-
Rate lists from your preferred shipping
service(s)
Note
Another itemnot on the listyou may want to keep on hand is a
rolling hand cart. This type of small, lightweight cart is particularly useful
when transporting multiple items to the post office, or from one end of your
house to the other.
Now for some elaboration. I recommend clear tape not just to
seal the box but also to tape over the address label and make it somewhat
waterproof. Brown tape can be used to tape over labels and logos when you reuse
an old box. I prefer Styrofoam peanuts to newspapers because peanuts don't leave
ink stains and because of the weight factor; using newspapers as filler can
substantially increase your package weight, and thus your shipping costs. (Of
course, newspapers are free and peanuts aren'tbut peanuts are cheaper than the
added shipping costs you'll incur with newspapers.)
The other materials are somewhat self-explanatoryalthough you
might ask why you need a knife when you're packing. I find myself using the
knife primarily to slice off old shipping labels from boxes I reuse for my eBay
shipping. Although some old labels tear off rather easily, most don't. To remove
them, you have to cut (shallowly) around the label and then lift off the
outermost layer of the cardboard box.
That's just a start, however. Learn more about packing your
items in Chapter 17, "Organizing Your
Packing and Shipping."
Boxes and Envelopes
The other items you need to find space for are the boxes and
envelopes in which you pack your items. Of course, what types of boxes and
envelopes you need depend on what types of items you'll be selling. Chapter 17 will help you determine the
kinds of shipping containers to use. Read ahead to learn more.
Once you've determined what sizes and types of shipping
containers you'll be using, you're faced with another challenge: Where do you
find supplies of these items?
The first thing you need to know is that some boxes are free.
That's right, if you're shipping via the U.S. Postal Service, you can get free
Priority Mail and Express Mail boxes, envelopes, and tubes. Some post offices
carry these free containers, or you can order in bulkbut still freefrom the eBay
and the USPS (ebaysupplies.usps.com) and have them delivered directly to
your home. (Figure 7.1 shows some of the
free co-branded eBay/USPS boxes available for Priority Mail shipping.)
Most post office locations also sell various types of boxes,
padded mailers, mailing tubes, and other packing materials, although their
prices tend to be a little on the high side. A better choice for high-volume
shippers is your local office supply store, such as Office Depot, Office Max, or
Staplesor a specialty box/shipping store.
Another good source of shipping supplies is your fellow eBay
retailers. Several eBay Store sellers specialize in packing supplies for other
eBay sellers. Just go to pages.ebay.com/businessmarketplace/ and click the Shipping
& Packing Supplies link.
Note
Other carriers may or may not offer their own free shipping
containers. FedEx, for example, offers certain sizes of envelopes and boxes for
your (free) use, as does UPS.
Finally, there
are lots of online merchants that offer good deals on packing materials. Check
out BubbleFAST (www.bubblefast.com), eSupplyStore.com (www.esupplystore.com),
ShippingSupply.com (www.shippingsupply.com), and Uline (www.uline.com).
Note
Many eBay sellers recycle old boxes, shipping out their items
in boxes that were originally shipped to them. While this works for low-volume
sellers, it doesn't look very professionaland it's unlikely that you'll have
enough old boxes sitting around to meet your high-volume shipping
needs.
You'll definitely want to stock up on those boxes and
envelopes. I like to keep at least a one-month supply on handand if you can get
a good deal on a larger quantity, go for it! Of course, you have to find a place
to store all those boxes. One good approach is to keep a week's supply in your
in-house packing center and store your extra boxes someplace less centralin your
garage or basement, in a shed, or even in a rented storage bin. You can then
transfer supplies of boxes as needed to your packing center.  | 
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