Discuss the various finishing services that can help showcase your brand. Topics include custom neck tag labels, hang tags, garment washes, folding, bagging and even shipment/packaging options.
Hey Yall'
What is the best shipping container to use when shipping a shirt? What is the Cheapest?...the most durable? Should I bag the shirt before I ship? If yes where do I get the bags, and the shipping containers for that matter. What are the range of prices on the containers. Who do you recommend I use UPS? USPS? You will save me a million hours of running around and figuring this out myself. Thanks so Much!
The best bags for shipping t-shirts are probably the tyvek bags. Priority mail gives them to you for free. If you want to ship by firstclass or airmail, you will have to buy packaging. The cheapest is the paper envelopes. The most expensive is the tyvek at about .55 each. In the middle are the poly envelopes, which you can get for about .18. The paper are ok, but are a bit flimsy. The poly work well, and the tyvek are great.
eBay is always good for packaging materials (and better still if you make a contact with a big stationary store there, and make subsequent purchases offeBay).
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Priority mail is too expensive anymore. $4.05, compared to about $2 with firstclass...You save a couple of dollars on each package by using firstclass, that money ads up over time.
I've found that, at least in Australia (and I'm guessing western postal systems can't be *radically* different) prepaid is often false economy. Certainly in the UK and Oz, the business discount you get from registering as someone who sends out in excess of 70 parcels a week is way in excess of standard prepay. And usually free pickup.
If you're making a living off this, then chances are you qualify for special business rates.
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I've found that, at least in Australia (and I'm guessing western postal systems can't be *radically* different) prepaid is often false economy.
In Australia you just need to be very aware of how the postal rate system works and what your options are. It's somewhat complicated at first, but extremely simple once it clicks.
Basically prepaid is very economical in some circumstances, and a poor choice in others. It's always convenient though, which is sometimes worth the revenue loss.
In the US prepaid Global Priority is much the same. I've had people insist on using it when Airmail would have been less than half the cost, and others fail to use it when the prepaid would have been a quarter of the cost. Again, the important thing is that you actually read your countries postal charts and understand how they work.
I've found that too often people just don't understand their post office, and since that occasionally includes the postal employees themselves one really can't afford to stay in the dark.
Priority mail is too expensive anymore. $4.05, compared to about $2 with firstclass...You save a couple of dollars on each package by using firstclass, that money ads up over time.
I've always charged a flat rate of $4.95 for shipping, so the Priority Mail doesn't seem too bad. Especially when you throw in the free tracking and free postal supplies (and faster delivery).
That being said, I'm getting ready to setup a local site selling shirts to locals (withing a few miles of each other) and the extra $2 bucks for Priority wouldn't make sense. First class for $2.10 will work just fine
Rodney, do they not give you a tracking number when you use first class?
You have to pay a little extra to get delivery confirmation with first class, but I'm pretty sure it's an option.
For getting a package from California to New York in 2-3 days (vs 5-7 days), I just think Priority Mail is the better way to go. The handling seems to be better for Priority packages as well.
Priority mail says that it will take an *average* of 2-3 days. Through my observations of when people ask me when their packages will be delivered, Priority mail generally takes 3-4 business days. First class takes about 5-6 business days. For me, shipping by first class mail means thousands of $$ more profit a year. Its a no brainer to me. I have never had a problem with handling on priority mail packages or first class mail.
Yeh, it seems like Priority Mail is what I'm going to go with.
1. Your customers get their orders delivered to them sooner. In our society of instant gratification it seems like this would help with getting people to come back to your shop.
2. You get a tracking number which is a feature people love. Everyone I know that orders something online loves to be able to see where their package is and will check it 100 times a day.
3. The price is really no big deal since everyone these days assumes the magic number of $4.95 for shipping -- people simply don't pay attention to it, at least not the majority (and the majority is who you cater to).
4. Like Rodney said, free postal supplies. My website isn't even done yet but I have 300 Tyvek envelopes and 300 boxes sitting in my apartment ready to go -- which I received for free.
There is an accepted shipping price (about $5), that people are used to paying for t-shirts. Customers will pay that price, no matter what method of shipping you are using. Since I sell thousands of t-shirts a year, and use first class mail, I make thousands of dollars more by shipping by first class rather than priority mail.
Shipping Packaging? 
