Pirate ship

[alloy]

I was recently introduced to Pirate ship. They have discount shipping apparently powered by pitney bows.

I have a 7" x 7" x 6" 4lb box I routinely ship for my ebay sales. I can ship through ebay and this box cost me $24.10 priority mail.
What is nice about it is that they automatically add the buyers address and add a tracking number. Pretty easy.

Pirate ship was $7.10 priority mail cubic rate. It's not as easy as ebay shipping in that you have to manually add the address and put a tracking number in ebay. But for a $17 savings I can spend a few minutes doing that.

I will never use ebay shipping again. And the next UPS package I have I'm going to compare it also.

Free UPS and USPS shipping software | Pirate Ship

Use our free UPS and USPS-certified shipping software to get pre-negotiated discounts for the cheapest shipping rates, which can save you up to 89%.

www.pirateship.com

 

[C-Bag]

I tried it for a while when Stamps.com went south on me. It was ok but kinda clunky. At the same time tried Pitney Bowes and while also clunky they had customer service help that actually did help. So for now I’m with their latest PitneyShip. They all seem to offer the same overall savings it’s a matter of reliability and ease of use. It is scary and a PIA to have to change because of lousy service.

 

[Nesse1]

eBay shipping prices are generally pretty good...as a seller. That said, I love Pirate Ship, and use them regularly. For heavier items, UPS is much cheaper than Priority. The only time I use USPS is for small things via First Class, or items that fit into a Flat Rate Box. And speaking of Priority, Pirate Ship offers a significant savings over using USPS.com. What's up with that?

 

[C-Bag]

Where all these services really discount is with UPS overseas. The same package that I paid $76 to Germany would have been $400 through the UPS store! Wassup wit dat!

Once again things have taken a jump in complication. Until yesterday I was not required to have a HS code for my stuff. Aye carumba what a cluster that was. Who knows what the next hoop I’ll have to jump through and whether SO and I can figure it out. It’s times like that I do wish I had that mythical AI assistant. I guess they are pushing most to hire an exporter, no thanks.

 

[alloy]

eBay shipping prices are generally pretty good...as a seller. That said, I love Pirate Ship, and use them regularly. For heavier items, UPS is much cheaper than Priority. The only time I use USPS is for small things via First Class, or items that fit into a Flat Rate Box. And speaking of Priority, Pirate Ship offers a significant savings over using USPS.com. What's up with that?

I've used ebay ship for years, but a $17 savings on just one package? All this time ebay was paying the $7 price and hosing me over.

I actually hate ebay. I have a website but no where near the traffic on it as compared to ebay. When they got rid of paypal we had no choice but to use managed payments and wait for the funds to hit our bank accounts. They said it would save us money. BS. I never saw ANY savings at all. And now we can get our money instantly for an additional 1.5%. Hmmmm........just like paypal but 4.5% not 3%.

OK, rant over

 

[Nesse1]

eBay, moving away from Paypal, was a money grab on their part. They hiked up the rates, not only grabbing the money that Paypal would normally charge, but adding more on top. It's something like 15% now. What concerns me more, though, is this 1099 business for items sold. Got to find a workaround for that. Gotta do some more study regarding that...

 

[alloy]

If you find a work around please let us know. I'm at a minimum $40k per year in sales and not looking forward to taxes next year.

 

[alloy]

I just checked my latest $400 sale and the percentage is 15.525%.

 

[G-ManBart]

If you find a work around please let us know. I'm at a minimum $40k per year in sales and not looking forward to taxes next year.

That sounds like a legitimate business where you should be paying taxes and usually that means quarterly estimated taxes. My wife has an eBay business and has to pay quarterly estimated for that very reason.

My heartburn with the 1099 thing isn't for people earning actual business income on eBay because they should be paying taxes. The heartburn is that you can sell something you've owned for years, at an actual loss, and because it's over the $600 limit, you get a 1099. I sold one of my bamboo fly rods earlier this year for just what I had in it, but I'm getting a 1099 because it was over the $600 limit. Now I have to talk to the accountant about how to document the fact it wasn't income...just ridiculous.

Related note, I've been using Pirate Ship for quite some time...seems to work really well. It's not always cheaper than eBay shipping, but it's worth checking as that does happen.

 

[woodchucker]

Where all these services really discount is with UPS overseas. The same package that I paid $76 to Germany would have been $400 through the UPS store! Wassup wit dat!

Once again things have taken a jump in complication. Until yesterday I was not required to have a HS code for my stuff. Aye carumba what a cluster that was. Who knows what the next hoop I’ll have to jump through and whether SO and I can figure it out. It’s times like that I do wish I had that mythical AI assistant. I guess they are pushing most to hire an exporter, no thanks.

what is HS code?