Home › Forums › Shipping: The Final Frontier › Betty Crocker Recipe Keeper media mail y/n?
- This topic has 15 replies, 11 voices, and was last updated 3 years, 7 months ago by debitendcredits.
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12/11/2018 at 12:37 pm #53114
I’m planning on calculating shipping on this media mail, it seems recipe books, manuals and flash cards all qualify. Am I wrong?
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12/11/2018 at 12:56 pm #53117
As someone who ships out lots of books, I would ship it out media mail.
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12/11/2018 at 1:22 pm #53118
There are two ways to think about this.
1. Cookbooks, recipes, and manuals are all covered under media mail. It would be OK if the cards or books advertised additional cookbooks or cards; that is acceptable for media mail. If any of it had advertisements for items other than other books or recipe cards, then, technically, it would fall out of the media mail category.
2. All the items in the box have to be media mail. You can’t mix and match. The plastic box is not a book, so the whole assortment can’t be sent media mail. Or, perhaps you could argue that the box and the cards make a book, and the box is part of the book just like a cover. I’m not sure whether that would hold or not.
Anyway, if it was me, I’d send it media mail even with the box or advertisements of other products. Just wanted to spell it out in “technical terms”.
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12/11/2018 at 2:26 pm #53120
Yes, try media mail. Just be aware that some USPS employees seem much more strict and could charge you extra if they think it’s not media mail. But I think there’s a tiny chance it would be flagged.
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12/11/2018 at 3:27 pm #53124
I would ship this by media mail, but pack it as well as possible. Media mail sometimes gets thrown around or handled less carefully than other mail classes.
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12/11/2018 at 9:21 pm #53151
Great info thanks everyone. Its live, wish me luck. We had one when i was a kid. It was fun looking at the 70’s. Fondue!
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01/17/2019 at 1:38 am #55299
good to know! I have one in yellow!
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01/19/2019 at 1:13 am #55388
Hi all,
I’m late to the party but thought I’d throw in my 2 cents.
I sold one in yellow like this full of cards with no advertising anywhere. The post office denied it being media mail and charged my customer an enormous amount of postage due.
She had to go to the PO to pick up and I had to reimburse the postage to her, of course.
Just FYI.-
01/19/2019 at 9:09 am #55394
How did the post office know? Did they inspect it?
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01/19/2019 at 11:48 am #55397
Good to know sooz- terrible news.
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01/19/2019 at 4:52 pm #55406
Sold one of these in December, and though I am careful not to misuse the USPS, sent it media mail. But I packed it including wrapping the recipe cards INSIDE the box so they wouldn’t shift and rattle, thinking there aren’t a ton of books or other media that rattle ( except, of course, 78 rpm records that shatter when yo look at them wrong…)
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03/11/2021 at 9:56 am #86625
I had listed a tin recipe box with recipe cards, put it as Priority Mail. A buyer messaged me asking if I could send it Media Mail. I researched and thought I could, so I edited the listed and changed the option to be only Media Mail. The buyer bought it and paid for Media Mail but when I went to ship it, Ebay would not let me print a Media Mail label. My best guess is that it did not like the ‘metal box’ part of the listing.
So I shipped it in a padded flat rate envelope and plan on absorbing the extra $2-4 or so. The buyer has said that she would like to reimburse me after she gets it.
thanks,
Carolyn
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03/11/2021 at 10:41 am #86627
When you send something media mail, everything in it has to be media. The metal box isn’t, so it shouldn’t be shipped as media mail.
However, eBay only allows you to buy a media mail label if you have something listed in an applicable category. This recipe set was probably not listed in any book or media category, so that is why you weren’t allowed to buy one. I’ve had a few books listed in a collectable category instead of a book one, so I imported the sale to Pirateship and bought the appropriate label there.
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03/11/2021 at 1:15 pm #86632
I have been curious how USPS designates Media Mail, since it has so many odd permutations like this. Why could I ship recipe cards MM but not their container? Or CD’s but not their cases? How do they define pages for an 8 page or longer book?
On a tangent since eBay charges more fees to sell books I have been known to list them in their other most closely related category. I listed a book about Muppets under the Muppet category instead of books for instance. Then eBay wouldn’t let me print a media mail label. As the above seller says, I went outside eBay and bought the label, and put the label number in the shipped area for the buyer and eBay to see it was shipped. Dunno if that is 100% copacetic, but I try to work in the spirit of the rules since they can so often depend on the reader.
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03/11/2021 at 9:30 pm #86639
The first time I had a problem with buying a media mail for a book, I called eBay and asked why I was having issues. The customer rep said that the only method to do it would be to buy a label outside of eBay. So, yes, it is copacetic.
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03/12/2021 at 11:14 am #86647
Asking the question – “Can I ship this Media Mail” is similar to the question “Can I deduct this on my taxes.” –
There are cut and dry areas but there are also subtle shades of grey. My general philosophy is if you are on the unsure, go with media mail but pack the thing so it looks and sounds like standard media mail (perfect example above don’t let your recipe cards rattle). If it is something that 100% qualifies as media mail but might throw off a post employee I always write what the item is on the outside of the box. For instance, “8mm Movies”, “VHS Tapes”.
If you get audited for 1 out of every 50 packages, and have to pay the difference you will still come out ahead in the long run. If you are getting audited once a week, you really need to rethink your methodology.
I am sure someone will post a horror story about someone going to jail or getting a 300k fine but those are applied to people who grossly abuse the system (just like taxes). In the last 10 years I think I had one media mail package inspected and it was returned to me postage due. It turnout the item actually qualified, and the post office sent it priority for free.
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