Small Business Saturday: USPS Shipping With A Flat Rate Envelope
- At June 21, 2014
- By Kelly
- In Sewing Business
- 3
Originally, I thought I would write a nice little post about shipping via the US Postal Service. What to do, what not to do. Then I realized, there is quite a lot of information to share, and it is too much for one sitting.
Today we are going to talk about the USPS Flat Rate Envelope, or FRE. It sounds like a simple thing, until you realize there is more than ONE FRE!
There are actually three different mailers that are all variations of the FRE.
First is the original – THE Flat Rate Envelope.
For years, this was the only option for FRE mailing. I have stuffed all kinds of things in these over the years – yards of fabric, items of clothing, packs of snaps, patterns, lots of things that USPS probably never intended these envelopes to be used for. But, when they first came out, the single rule was that whatever was in there had to fit in such a way that the closure flap could meet in the proper place on the front of the envelope to close. If you wanted to put half a roll of tape on it to reinforce the corners or keep the whole thing from bursting, no one at my post office complained.
Next came the LEGAL size FRE.
It seems that people actually did use the original FREs for their intended purpose of shipping documents quickly. Those sending legal contracts or other oversized pages had a need for a slightly larger envelope to accommodate those things, so the legal size FREs were introduced, with a slightly higher shipping cost. For those of us using the original FREs for other things (like fabric!), these legal size envelopes offered a little more room.
But, these paperboard mailers were not really meant for fabric. Sure, we got it in there, but often the envelopes would arrive torn and sometimes their contents would get dirty or even damaged as a result. Here is a FRE I received recently. It did not even travel terribly far.
The machines used to process the mailers were expecting them to be flat. When they weren’t, things did not always end well.
The solution: the PADDED FRE.
The padded FRE, or PFRE as it is commonly known, arrived to accommodate all those odd shaped things we had been previously shoving into the original FREs. When they first came out, they had a papery outer and bubble mailer inner. The latest version has a more plastic-y polymailer type outer and bubble mailer inner. They are much more durable than the paper coated outer was.
Why does this all matter?
Even though they are all Flat Rate Envelopes, the rate is not the same.
The original FRE is the least expensive, currently shipping for $5.60 to any US destination from your local post office. The others cost more. And, if you are shipping through PayPal (but not for an eBay purchase), only the original FRE option is available there.
To ship these packages, you will want to use the shipping service on USPS.com. It is easy and free to create an account there. Plus, you will want an account anyway for what I’m going to tell you in a moment. (How exciting!)
When you ship through USPS.com, you will see these flat rate options:
Notice that the original FRE is still the least expensive option. This means, if you put the original FRE postage on a legal or padded FRE, you are sending an item with insufficient postage. You risk it arriving at the destination with postage due, or possibly coming back to you for insufficient postage. If you are selling something, do you really want to take the chance that your customer’s package arrives to them postage due? (No, you do not!)
It would be easier to print these labels from PayPal. Some people have said that you can print from PayPal using the FRE option and then add on stamps to make up the difference. Since I rarely have stamps, let alone the exact amount I would need, I ship through USPS’s website. When shipping through USPS, you can still pay with PayPal, so that is nice.
Sometimes I hear comments that they should all be the same rate. And of course, those folks usually want the rate to be the cheapest rate. (Who wouldn’t!) But, it makes sense that the padded mailers have a higher shipping charge because they are a more expensive product to produce. The paperboard mailers work fine for their original purpose of shipping documents. But even the current version of the original FRE seems to be more flimsy than the original paperboard that was used when the FREs first came out.
The other thing you want a USPS account for is ordering shipping supplies. If you ship using USPS Priority Mail, the boxes and mailers are included in the shipping price. If you do a lot of shipping, the website will let you order 6 packs of 15 padded FREs. If you have a smart phone or iPad, you can install the USPS mobile app and it will allow you to order 100 padded FREs at a time. It is only 10 more, but if you know you will need them, might as well order them. You can order as few as 5 envelopes at a time. USPS retail locations typically do not stock the padded FREs, so you do need to plan ahead a bit if you want to use them.
You do not have to be a business owner to order shipping supplies. So, if you just want a more economical way to ship something to your friend across the country, get yourself a 5 pack to have on hand.
Happy Shipping!
Kelly