I love getting Something for Nothing
Written: Apr 01 '05 (Updated Apr 01 '05)
| Setup Ease: |
 |
|
|
| Full Review |
Selling on eBay requires a lot of shipping boxes. I simply couldn’t find a better deal than on USPS (United States Postal Service) Store. I can order selection of boxes and shipping supplies and have them delivered to my house for free!
For awhile I was going to the Post Office to get free boxes. You have to wait in an hour in line to ask the lady to hand you some from behind the counter. Don’t be bashful and ask for too little or you won’t have enough but asking for too many means an embarrassing struggle getting them out to the car.
Finally one day the lady behind the counter tells me that the boxes can be ordered online. Music to my ears! The postal store can be accessed through the Buy Stamps & Shop tab on their main website if you can’t remember their website which is shop.usps.com.
USPS sells a lot of things in their store. The website itself is done professionally so your browsing experience should be enjoyable. They sell things like regular and collector’s stamps, artwork, stuffed animals, mailing supplies, mailbox banks, and more.
When you find the stamp or product that you are interested in you can click the image to take you to a more detailed page about the product. I selected the Happy Birthday Stamp. The page tells me the issue, denomination, if it’s self-stick, and price. In this case the price for the birthday stamps is $7.40 because the site requires it to be sold in a booklet plus $1.00 shipping. Even if you buy three books of stamps, the shipping would be just $1. Unlike the local Post Office, you can’t just buy a single stamp for .37.
I have been to this site many times and always have trouble finding the things I need of course searching for free stuff is like searching for a needle in a haystack. To save time hunting I just search for Priority boxes in the search box which displays all of the priority boxes that available otherwise the direct link to all the shipping supplies is supplies.usps.gov. The boxes can be ordered in quantities of 25. I try to be careful not to order too many because I have to store them. There is a variety of selections, even more than they offer at the Post Office.
Anyone can browse the store however in order to buy a product you have to sign up for an account. Your account information remains in their database. You can see the order history for years ago through the order history page. It will also indicate if anything you order is on backorder, pre-orders, or subscriptions. If you are logged onto the site and are inactive for awhile the site will automatically log you off for security purposes.
Once you have signed up for an account ordering is simple. Click for items to be purchased and continue shopping until you’re ready to checkout. The Shopping Cart link will take you to the checkout and procedures are the same as anywhere else. They accept VISA, MasterCard, Discover, American Express, and Diners Club for payment. You will receive an automated email to notify you that a purchase was made.
My boxes usually take 10-14 days to arrive. They are too big to fit in a post box or mail box so they either leave them on my doorstep or they leave a note in my box to go to the post office to pick them up. The shipment usually comes in several packages.
The United States Post Office has a lot of options online. The USPS Store sells physical stamp, if you are looking to print stamps from your computer at home then you would choose stamp.com which is different than the USPS Store.
The only drawback that I see is that it takes time to get your merchandise in the mail. If you order postage stamps it could be 3-5 days which means one would have to plan ahead. If you order something more complicated it could take a couple weeks. I usually wait no less than two weeks for boxes to arrive but since I'm not paying for shipping I'll try not to complain.
Related reviews
Stamps.com
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
xyzwyatt
|
 - Top 50 |
|
Location: Nashville, TN
Reviews written: 542
Trusted by: 171 members
About Me:
Be a coffee-drinking individual - espresso yourself!
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.