If the item is less than 2CM thick, and can safely be shipped in a bubble mailer, you can send it lettermail within Canada for between $2-$6. Keep in mind, you will not be covered by eBay's Seller Protection, as there would be no tracking. Most people do fine selling without tracking, but it will vary by what category of item you sell. Some categories might be more high risk than others. You also should expect to eventually have to refund an item not received case. The logic is that by shipping lettermail, you can charge $2-$6 for shipping, instead of $15-$20, and the additional profit will make up for the occasional item not received refund.
If you cannot ship lettermail, you will want to sign up for a Canada Post "Small Business" account on their website. You don't have to be a registered business. Anybody can sign up. You will get a slight discount on Canada Post rates. You can also print your label directly on eBay. I usually find Canada Post is cheaper than eBay, but depending on what discount tier you are on Canada Post, that might not be the case. You also might want to keep a few Small Canada Post Flat Rate boxes on hand. With the rise in the cost of fuel, smaller items are usually cheaper in a flat rate box.
If you plan to have a very large inventory, and if the category you're selling in has the potential for customers to buy more than one item at once, I would go with the flat rate box and offer free combined shipping. One upside about flat rate boxes is that the cost is predictable. For something like small toys, you can fit such a large amount of them in a small flat rate box, that it is unlikely you'd encounter a scenario where someone pays $18.49 for combined shipping, and you cannot fit them all. Canada Post makes three sizes of flat rate boxes as well, so if you ever did encounter that situation, paying an extra few bucks to fit them all in a medium flat rate box would be a good problem to have, if it means someone has bought an extremely large amount of your items.
If you need shipping supplies, Staples website is good for boxes. They have smaller boxes that would be great for small toys. Costco's website sells bubble mailers. You also might be able to find bubble mailers at Dollarama. A reasonable expectation is to pay 25 cents per bubble mailer. The price of cardboard boxes will vary.
If you plan to sell to the USA, use Chit Chats. Purchase a small kitchen scale so that you can weigh your items. If you can keep your USA orders under 400 or so grams, you can ship them for an average of $8. This is with tracking, and is usually First Class mail, which only takes 3-5 days from when you drop it off at Chit Chats. The downside to Chit Chats is that you might not have a branch in your city, or if you do, it might not be in an ideal location. The best way to circumvent this is a longer handling time so that you are only dropping packages off once a week. 3 days is usually a nice sweet spot where eBay does not consider it excessive handling time, but it is long enough that you usually only have to do 1 drop per week at a Chit Chats. Even with the added handling time, Chit Chats is a lot faster and cheaper than Canada Post to the USA.
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