I ship a lot of books - I sell some books on Amazon, I share books back and forth with a library school friend of mine in Illinois, and I find myself frequently sending books off to friends and family around the country.
Shipping can be heinously expensive and the post office, to my knowledge, doesn't give out coupon codes, so it's rather hard to save much money there.
However, I've discovered that most people don't know about the existence of media mail.
If you're shipping something that is "media" (this includes books, CDs, DVDs, musical scores, etc), you can send it for practically nothing - far less expensive than first class.
In fact, when we moved recently, we packed up all our books, CDs, and movies and shipped them this way because you can send a 50 lb box for $21. That is a good deal.
And when I'm only sending one book? It's lovely that it only costs about $2.
5 comments:
Amen! The fact that the post office doesn't advertise media mail (you have to know about it to request it) is pretty sneaky.
Yes! It's awesome.
Though I tend to throw stuff out, I do save book-size shipping stuff like smaller boxes and different sizes of padded envelopes. Those costs can get fairly steep when you're sending out, say, those engineering textbooks your husband has been hoarding for years. You know, maybe.
I love sending media mail! It's such a savings. And sometimes it seems just as fast as regular first-class mail.
just remember you are not allowed to put any other kind of communication in with the books -- no note or letter -- my friend had her box checked and she had written "enjoy" on a post it and was charged for regular mail rather than media mail.
Great idea! I will definitely keep this in mind.
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