@petcrevproducts wrote:
I’m just getting ready to create my listing and sell my first item on Ebay, I have been doing a lot of reading and watching videos about how to prepare, print labels and ship your items that have been sold. Everyone is telling me that I should use either Ebay or Paypal to print off my shipping label and apply the label to my package. Well I recently purchased something off of Ebay and when it arrived at my house it was just in a plain old pre-paid letter envelope with labels on it that looked like they were printed off of Windows Word or something. It looked nothing like what I’ve seen online from Ebay or Paypal with all sorts of numbers and a barcodes. Can I actually do this or do I have to use Ebay or Paypal labels?....like shoots… Talk about throwing a wrench in my learning curve here!!
Ah, but now you know why experienced sellers always tell new sellers to do some buying first!
You have learned something valuable through buying that you might not have realized as a seller until the first time you sold a small, lightweight item and couldn't find a Paypal label to send it with. Now you know in advance, and can save yourself stress and confusion.
As the others here have said, Paypal labels are definitely the way to go (unless you have access to discount postage stamps) for most parcels, but they are not available for lettermail. The Paypal label discounts on Tracked Packet, Expedited and Xpresspost are better than anywhere else (even than Canada Post's small business discounts).
Remember that "lettermail" within Canada also includes parcels up to the Oversize Lettermail limit (38x27x2cm), so you'll need to keep postage stamps on hand for those. That is, unless you pay for postage at your Post Office, where they'll run off a machine "postage label" for you. For these you'll also need to make up your own address labels, such as what 'ricarmic' suggests.
Note that there is nothing equivalent to the economical "Small Packet USA" within Canada -- you ship to Canada either by lettermail, or jump into one of the (much more expensive) parcel services, depending on size and weight. This is why selling items that are large but of low value within Canada can be a challenge in terms of shipping costs.
Personally I never hand-write addresses on lettermail parcels to Canadian buyers, as I think that helps to avoid inadvertent errors or problems with delivery. I just copy and paste the address directly off the Paypal transaction into Word, then cut it out and tape it securely (with clear packing tape, not Scotch tape) to the envelope. That way, I know I'm covered in the event of any issues over the address.
