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Here’s a situation that probably doesn’t come up very often. I just had to ship a book to an APO address in Europe. The cheapest option was media mail plus shipsaver insurance. I printed the label. But then I started to wonder if media mail ships to overseas military addresses. On the USPS website I see almost everything else (1st class, priority), but not media mail. I guess I’ll find out.
Also, the print label page specified that the label had to be printed on 8 1/2 x 11 paper. No idea why. I have a 6×4 thermal printer and I wasn’t set up for that, so I had to revive an old printer and get that working with my new setup. It kept printing the same small image. Took me awhile to get it working right. I’m hoping next time it will remember the defaults for both printers, but who knows…
I’m not complaining, but this is the kind of stuff I would like to tell new sellers they’ll have to deal with all of the time. Those “make a living on ebay” videos never mention the thousands of little things you need to deal with and learn as you go.
Hope everyone’s sales are picking up.
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This is why I have used the GSP – Global Shipping Program ever since it came out. If it sells overseas, I print one regular Ebay label for the regular rate for Erlanger, KY, slap on the label and off it goes. Ebay handles everything from there.
There is no reason we could think of that would be worth skipping over this program. Only in the case that you would want to specifically ship to countries which Pitney Bowes [Ebay GSP sub-contractor partner] doesn’t ship to. But why would you risk doing that, especially for so few sales. Ebay / Pitney don’t ship to certain countries for good reasons and I am not going to buck their experience and research on the matter.Bet you already have countries you won’t ship to, so just why not rely on the GSP program and be done with it. But I do hear of the Canadian exception.
If you consider your time worth [pick a random number} $20 per hour, did you spend $40 worth of time messing with that old printer and trouble shooting it. Much less the 3 or 4 new listings you may have been able to create.
I may be totally clueless, but maybe sometimes we create our own “little kinds of stuff to deal with”.
As far as advice to “newbies”, I would tell them to participate in the GSP program. Fast, simple and easy for them and they can move on to foreign shipping on their own after they gain all the experience to do so without a hassle.
So just curious how many people here on SL opt out of the GSP program and handle all this stuff on their own. And if the answer is I ship small stuff and the cost is high. Who cares, as Jay says, it is what it is and if you want it you will pay for it. Otherwise, I would seek out larger and more expensive inventory and ship to where it easily can go to.
Just my opinion while waiting on an computer update to finish.
mike collins in Atlanta
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From everything I’ve read, APO/Military addresses are treated just like domestic addresses. You’re actually sending the package to some kind of military hub in the US and the military mail takes over from there. Media mail should be fine. It’s possible that you’re needing to fill out a customs for to send to an overseas military base so that may be the wrinkle.
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Simon, That’s what I thought too. Which is why I went for it. Just started thinking about it (probably a mistake), so I went to the USPS for clarification and couldn’t find any.
The label prints with the customs’ form and other info formatted together, so I was able to print, tape it, sign it, and send it off.Mike, Yep. I agree. That’s why I’m in the GSP. As you can tell from what I just wrote, this transaction didn’t go through the GSP, but it was going abroad. I was pretty sure about military mail getting handled like it was in country no matter what, so I took a chance and decided to save a couple of bucks on shipping with media mail. Just thought it was weird that USPS didn’t mention it (at least where I looked).
I like that the GSP takes care of customs forms, but I still have to mess around to print FedEX and UPS labels with my 6×4 thermal. Usually I have to make them bigger and print in landscape view.
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just to echo what others have said- APO addresses are treated like domestic addresses, so media mail should apply the same. though, as you noticed, they make you print a customs form along with it, which can get annoying. APO addresses will never go through GSP, as they are considered Domestic US addresses.
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