Online House Hunting

Shipping eBay items from home through PayPal?

I'm selling between 2-3 items a day on ebay. Generally, I ship every other day when I have 4-6 items. I keep reading that I could SAVE MONEY (and time) and not have to drive to the post office if I ship from home but it seems all too complicated. I signed up for the USPS "Click N Ship" program, but right away encountered 3 problems: 1. Too many clicks and forms. You have to manually type the buyers address, (PayPal automatically adds it on the label) then 5 pages later you have to enter your credit card info. 2. The prices are 3x higher on some items, as they offer no option for First-Class Mail, only Priority. 3. You still have to manually enter the tracking number into eBay. Correct me if I'm wrong but the main reason people use this overpriced complicated service is because the postman will come to your house and pick it up, right? Also, am I correct that they will only pick up if there is 1 or more PRIORITY packages? (See where I'm going with this?) Some of the items I sell don't merit Priority prices, so I'm wondering if there can be a COST EFFECTIVE integration between eBay/PayPal/Click-N-Ship that is SIMPLE. From where I stand, I could do this: 1) Wait 2 days until I have 6-8 items ready to ship. 2) Go to Click-N-Ship and purchase Priority or Flat rate box for 1 of the items. 3) Print the rest through eBay with First Class Mail. 4) Mail them altogether when USPS comes for pick up. So my questions for you is: WOULD THAT WORK? IS THERE AN EASIER WAY?

Public Comments

1. When your postman comes to your house, doesn't he pick up mail from your mailbox as well as drop it off? Everything would be prepaid postage, right? So why would the letter carrier have a problem taking all of your packages, priority or not? It isn't like you're shipping a lot of oversized cartons that would require you to go to the post office.