How small can I successfully scale a PayPal shipping label?

[dinomitesales]

The Canada Post shipping labels print at approximately half of a 8 1/2 x 11" sheet of paper. I often ship parcels smaller than these dimensions, and therefore 'scale' down the print size prior to printing it.

The lowest I've gone was 80% of original size and had no issues (although, admittedly, it was still a bit large for the parcel and wrapped around the edges a bit). Have any of you shrunk down your labels even more? Like 50% or so with no issues? I'd imagine as long as the barcode can successfully be scanned there aren't any issues, but the text for the destination address gets kind of tiny at that point.

Additionally, are there any rules regarding wrapping a shipping label around a package? I know the barcode need to be on a flat surface, but would there be any issue if say the barcode was on one side of a box-shaped parcel, but the destination address was on an adjacent side?

Thanks.

[mr.elmwood]

Two sides would be pushing your luck. Size? I manage to make the parcel bigger. Weight? I move down to the bubble mailer from the fibre one. They are light and big enough for the label and labelope.

Make things too small and move them around on the packet and you run the risk of moving the "return to" address into the scanning field of the equipment and then you come back wondering why your packets are coming back to you.

[pjcdn2005]

Additionally, are there any rules regarding wrapping a shipping label around a package? I know the barcode need to be on a flat surface, but would there be any issue if say the barcode was on one side of a box-shaped parcel, but the destination address was on an adjacent side?

I have no idea if there are rules against doing this but I have often used smaller boxes and folded the label so that the address was on one side and barcode was on the other. I haven't had any problems with that so far.

[pocomocomputing]

I have shipped with PayPal label reduced to 80% recently by Expedited Parcel Canada with barcode and there were tracking points recorded along the way so the smaller barcode worked.

Going smaller than 80% may cause issues with the barcode. The address field font is also getting small too so may cause issues with the package being dropped off at the wrong address at the last stage of delivery when the postal employee has to read the smaller address.

A few months ago, I sent a package Expedited Parcel within Canada and reduced the label to 80% as mentioned above. At the same time I printed Sample labels from the same PayPal printing page and printed the sample label at 50 to 100% in increments of 5%. I trimmed the white space and created a set of sample labels to see how big the labels were as well as the size of the address font size and the size of the barcode. I then sorted by size from 50 to 100% and put a black metal clip on the sample labels to have a "book" of the sizes for future use if needed.

(I saved paper using the back of used pages for these sample labels. Go green!)

From my sample labels, 50% is very small. I think maybe 75% will work but lower than that may cause issues because of the size.

One thing you should be aware of is the minimum dimensions of the label for a shipping service that you use. While you are concerned with the barcode, you may not be meeting the minimum dimensions for the package.

The minimum dimensions of a package shipped by Canada Post Expedited Parcel within Canada is 10 x 7 x 0.1 cm. For Expedited Parcel USA, the minimum dimension is 21 x 14 x 0.5 cm. For Tracked Packet and Small Packet USA and International the minimum dimensions are 14 x 9 x 0.5 cm.

Now you have reduced the label to 80%. Did you trim all the white space around the label to reduce the size of the label on the package?

My sample label printed at 80% with all white space trimmed is 14.5 x 10 cm.

You say that you label at 80% is still a bit too big for your package. If the size of the label is the same as my printer, then you are very close to the minimum size for TP and SP at 14 x 9 x 0.5 cm.

If I print at 75%, the label size trimmed is 13.7 x 9.2 cm. This is below the minimum for TP and SP. Not much.

At 50%, the label size is 9 x 6 cm. Really small. Everything is legible but small like fine print. (I am using a laser printer with 600 DPI resolution so the label is clear.)

If you are shipping Expedited Parcel USA, then the minimum of 21 x 14 x 0.5 cm is not met for the size of the package you mentioned in your post.

How strictly does Canada Post enforce the minimum dimensions is something I do not know. I would assume being off by under 1 cm for any dimension is not a problem. But being off by 6 or 7 cm might be. I have never heard of a package being rejected when dropped in a mailbox. But if you go to the counter to get your PayPal packages with barcode scanned for proof of acceptance in the CP system, the counter people may reject them since they can see they are small.

Why are the minimums there? I would guess the big issues is that small packages get lost more easily. The machinery processing the packages may have minimum sizes for the packages so they do not jam up or fall off or whatever. All machine have specifications of what they can handle. Being too small may cause issues with the machines. And there is the crush factor. A small package may have a 30 kg package behind it to crush the small package.

[dinomitesales]

Thanks for the in-depth response.

The package I sent at 80% went Expedited Parcel within Canada to an address in Quebec. It was a mass-market paperback book quite a bit larger than 10x7 cm. I agree with you that I probably won't go less than 80%, too risky.