Shipping shock - the big cost of shipping small items

[rose-dee]

This is a bit of a rant, more like sticker shock I suppose.  Not that I didn't expect overseas shipping to rise significantly this year, but honestly. 

I just sold two sewing patterns (280 grams total weight) to a customer in Australia.  I haven't sold to Oz in a while, so this was a shipping "update" for me.  What an update.  These two items fit into a standard No. 5 bubble envelope, just under 2.0cm thick, which, with a little taping of the edges used to be able to go via Light Packet Air for a rather pricey but still manageable cost of around $10 to Australia.  

With the demise of Light Packet Air, I had no choice but the Small Packet Air service (forget surface service!).  The cost -- $22.43 Cdn  for essentially an oversize lettermail package.   And if I'd wanted the cheapest tracked  service?  Tracked Packet was -- get this -- $47.48!  Holy cats, who can sell small, inexpensive items to distant buyers anymore?  It's almost laughable.  

Oh well, we'll see whether Small Packet Air can actually make it to Australia in under a month. 

[femmefan1946]

I used a couple of the $3.00 hockey holograms today.

The glue is very dry already. I have my  glue stick handy when I use those.

The peel and stick stamps are disliked by collectors of used stamps because they are difficult to remove from paper.

I'm not sure this was the right method of getting around that problem though.

[ricarmic]

Yep I've also noticed that some of the older "contact cement" non-lickable stamps are already either going "dry" and won't stick to anything, or adhering to the backing they're mounted on and won't come off anymore......