Customs Form: 1 or 3 pages?
Summary: treadstone68 shares a concern about printing eBay shipping labels for items sent from Canada to the US. Occasionally, the customs forms print on half a page, requiring three duplicates to be attached to the package, potentially affecting shipping weight limits. ricarmic suggests that the label size may vary depending on the shipping method used, such as small packets or expedited services. mrdutch1001 notes a lack of issues with label printing by adjusting printer settings and mentions not using HS codes for US shipments. The discussion focuses on the unpredictability of label size and its implications for shipping.
I ship about 95% of my items from Canada to the US, and print my shipping labels through ebay probably at the same rate. There is the odd time that I print the shipping lable and it takes up the whole 8.5x11 page... meaning one half is the shipping lable, and the other half is a seperate customs form (rather than being a small box being part of the shipping label). My question is HOW can I tell ahead of time if the customs form will be the "half page" flavour? When it is the half page size, I print that half three times and put all 3 in a make-shift ziploc pouch on the side of the box, but this can put you over one of the weight thresholds as I measured that the pouch and the documents weigh about 42 grams.
A bit un-nerving at times when you are close to the limit of the next weight/price threshold. There was one time I used the exact same HS code but for a collectible teacup I got the regular half-page sized shipping label, but the next time around with the SAME HS CODE (although heavier item), I was given the customs form box as the half-page version.
This is the one question I have that prevents me from self-proclaiming myself as a shipping expert! LOL.
mrdutch1001
·2 years agoAlthough I have not the experiences you are encountering...perhaps because I have adjusted all the settings on the printer, to print out exactly what and how I want the label to be printed...(BTW, I rarely use HS codes for my USA destined packages & have had no issues printing any labels and I print out just 1 copy of the label for the package, but I do retain a copy of the label for my own record-keeping)... other than that frustrating non-working part about being able to insert the actual origin country of the item>which is a known problem for the past year or more, no label printing issues...
ricarmic
·2 years agoI am not 100% sure of your situation because I'm a stamps on the box kinda guy but:
If it is a small packet (including tracked), there's only one postal label has everything on it.
If it is expedited or expresspost parcel, there's two postal labels, ones a customs form, ones the other stuff.