posted on May 11, 2008 12:17:26 PM new
Tom,
If you log into your Paypal account and pick any payment from your buyer,scroll down the detail page and you will see print shipping label,print packing label,click on print shipping label and his and your address are all filled in and all you have to do is choose the method of shipment and the weight,it will tell you how much is shipping plus DC,you just click and move on to next page and then it will ask you if you want to print the label.
Your postage and DC will come out of your Paypal balance.
Paypal does not make any money,it is a nice feature .
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Lets all stop whining !
posted on May 11, 2008 12:36:58 PM new
I use PayPal to print all my labels from things I've sold on EBay. Even those who pay by check or money order. Mark them as payment received in My EBay and then choose print label. Takes you right to PayPal.
Cheryl
[ edited by cblev65252 on May 11, 2008 03:47 PM ]
posted on May 11, 2008 08:52:39 PM new
What irks me about PayPal is the fact that they also take a percentage of the shipping.
I once sold a small, plain mirror plateau to a buyer in Australia. It sold for a mere $18.00. He wanted to receive it by Air Mail (surface shipping was an option back in those days....not anymore).
Air Mail shipping was $46.00.
PayPal takes a commission on the full $64.00, so that hurt a bit.
Of course, if PayPal only took a percentage of the selling price, more and more sellers would sell an item for $2.00 and then charge $25.00 for shipping. (I'm sure this is the argument we would receive from PayPal if we argued about their commissions on shipping).
posted on May 12, 2008 05:02:48 AM new
I'm not the biggest fan of PayPal, but WHY would PP not take a percentage of the shipping? They take a cut of the funds transferred, not of the "underlying" sale. To put it another way, if something sold for $100, you received a money order for $99, and they PP'ed you $1, you wouldn't expect PP to take a cut of $100, would you?
posted on May 12, 2008 05:29:58 AM new
If your customer uses a credit card to pay that $64 dollars,Paypal pays its bank which provides the merchant account a discount fee and a transaction fee for authorising the transaction and processing the transaction by submitting the charge to his credit card issuer and depositing the proceeds in your account and deal with any potential disputes and chargebacks.
Paypal is not a bank,it cannot process credit card transactions,it probably has merchant account(s) with more than one bank and get very good deal for volume discounting.
posted on May 12, 2008 07:28:59 AM new
Northwoodsguy,
Don't get me wrong, I resent PP's fees and business practices as much as anyone. I consider them, at best and on a good day, a necessary evil to doing business on eBay. My only point was that there's no reason they wouldn't take a cut of ANY penny that flows through their service.
posted on May 12, 2008 09:12:10 AM new
Okay, guys. Once and for all. PayPal does or does not take a bite out of a shipping label I print with them? I see conflicting opinions in this thread.
I hadn't known I could print a label for a non-PayPal payment from a buyer. Would PayPal take a cut out of that, in that case?
Inquiring minds want to know - definitively.
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posted on May 12, 2008 09:16:40 AM newI guess I wouldn't complain about the shipping charges if the PayPal fees were so darn high to begin with.
Then go get your own merchant card processing account.
But card processors typically tack on extra maintenance or statement fees that you don't pay when you use PayPal.
So I don't understand your grousing. If it's just "I don't wanna have to pay to receive payments!", well, you can require your customers to send USPS money orders only.
posted on May 12, 2008 09:19:26 AM new
Adele: You can print labels from PayPal for money order or check payments. PayPal does not charge a transaction fee.
There's a lot of confusion in this thread. Some people are saying PayPal prints postage for free, but of course it doesn't. It charges the postage amount to your PayPal account. What they mean to say is that you can print postage fee-free.
posted on May 12, 2008 09:30:17 AM new
Fluffy: Thanks much for your answer. That's what I thought.
Now, last question: Someone said USPS takes a fee out of the printing,over and above the cost of the postage. Could that possibly be true? ~Adele (too early on a Monday morning to think clearly; head spinning!)
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posted on May 12, 2008 10:20:44 AM new
Roadsmith - PayPal DOES NOT charge a fee for printing postage. If PayPal gets anything, it's from USPS not us. I've always printed postage through PayPal. Right now Priority Mail is $4.75, which I believe is $.05 cheaper than the regular rate.
I used to have a merchant account. PayPal was cheaper.
posted on May 12, 2008 12:09:57 PM new
Stone - Should have been more detailed. It was for my other business. Not the EBay business. Between the rent on the machine, the bank's fees and the major credit card company's fees, it cost us over $100/mo. Every time someone paid with Discover or Am Ex we were socked with two fees. Considering we only accepted credit cards about 5 times a month with an average sale of $60, it was costly! After our two year contract was up, we went with the PP Virtual Terminal at $30/mo plus the transaction fees. We're saving a ton of money. So, I guess it depends on what you do as far as volume goes.
As far as my EBay business, I don't consider PP to be too terribly out of line so I'll keep them for now. That's subject to change, of course.
posted on May 12, 2008 12:11:49 PM new
When you print shipping label thru Paypal,you pay for postage and DC,which goes to USPS,it is not free.
If you are just printing packing slip,there is no postage involved,then it is free.
This is no different from printing shipping label on USPS website,you pay for postage.
There is a discount through when you print shipping label on line for Express mail going overseas on both USPS and Paypal sites.
Stonecold-
Paypal is cheaper if you are a small seller,there is no minimum discount fee,no annual fee,no monthly statement fee and the chargeback fee of $10 is lower than what most merchant accounts charge-: $25-$75.
And merchant account providers do not think DC is good enough to prove delivery,it has to be signed receipt such as Fed Exp or UPS OR USPS signature confirmation.
Also if you have your own merchant account,if you want to refund your customer after a certain number of days,you have to do a credit entry and there are fees involved with credit entry.
Having your own merchant account is good if you sell big ticket items and/or if you sell outside Ebay,say you have a brick and mortar store.
Also,some of us use the Paypal debit card as a credit card and get 1 1/2% rebate which helps to offset some of the Paypal fees,not to mention the fund sitting around in Paypal account also earns interest.
*
Lets all stop whining !
posted on May 12, 2008 12:56:54 PM new
Buy your postage for Prioity Mail at Click-N-Ship save 10% and pay with your PayPal Card for the additional savings. Same with Priority Mail International.
posted on May 12, 2008 01:44:51 PM new
hwahwa - I wasn't saying postage was "free". What I'm saying is that you personally don't pay anything to PayPal to print postage on the site. I pay the same amount when I print from PayPal as I do when I use Click and Ship through the USPS website.
You do save if you use your PP card and Click and Ship. However, it's just easier to use PayPal because everything is already filled in. If you have 20 packages to do the time savings doing it through PP outweighs any savings going through USPS and having to type all the information in. JMHO.
posted on May 12, 2008 02:05:17 PM new
Or standardize on one postage solution that does every class of mail and save a lot of time you would have otherwise spent gluing on stamps.
I used to use #000 bubble mailers because they were the cheapest -- but had to trim every label with scissors to fit. Now I use #00. More expensive but I can ship 1/3 more packages in the same time.
I used to use discount postage, but wound up with packages that had five or six stamps on them and a bunch of leftover small denominations. Not worth the time or the hassle to me.
I used to use PaperMart for bubble mailers, inside bubble envelopes, poly bags, cellophane bags, etc. because they were cheap but it takes three days to get here from L.A. Now I use Uline and stuff arrives overnight. Sure, it costs a bit more, but the convenience is worth it.
posted on May 12, 2008 02:09:40 PM new
Cherly,
I am not saying you think printing postage on Paypal is free,I am referring to earlier post(s).
I use Paypal ,not USPS as well,when I get a notification that someone has paid me,I just follow the link to Paypal site and start printing the shipping label.
As for having your own merchant account,there are companies which offer low discount rate like 1- 1 1/2 % ,but there could be hidden fees,and how fast do they deposit the proceeds?
And how do you convince the Ebay bidders to give you their credit card data?
posted on May 12, 2008 02:41:10 PM new
hwahwa - LOL! I think there have been so many opinions on this thread it's gotten confusing. I got it now.
Fluffy - I agree on the "time" thing. Time is money. If I can print postage in 1/2 the time through PP, saving that little bit of money using my PP card and USPS just isn't worth it. My time is worth more.
Using PP, in addition to saving time, you avoid the possibility of a typo in the address. Talk about a lot of wasted time and (rightful) buyer resentment!
posted on May 12, 2008 04:02:18 PM new
Don't forget the UPS PayPal special rates -- I save a ton of money with that. Better than FedEx's new improved rate structure by far (special offer through ShipRush for FedEx still about $2 higher than UPS via PP).
PP fees are simply a cost of doing business. And cheap at that. I've used it at shows to make sales that I probably wouldn't have made otherwise (for those customers who eBay at least -- little old ladies are a bit more complex).
posted on May 12, 2008 05:30:30 PM new
I know overseas first class shipping label is not an option on Paypal,but what about packing slip for overseas first class,can we do it ??
It would be better than handwritten foreign address
*
Lets all stop whining !
posted on May 13, 2008 09:37:52 AM newSomeone said USPS takes a fee out of the printing,over and above the cost of the postage. Could that possibly be true?
Nope. 100% false. In fact the opposite is true. They now give you a discount for printing out postage as opposed to using stamps or going to the Post Office.
posted on May 13, 2008 09:50:22 AM new
Actually, Bill, the label printing function at PayPal is highly available. The few times I've gotten the error message all I had to do was go back and try again.
What slows me down is when I get a widgit of a customer who can't spell or format her address correctly, and I have to fix it before the label will be generated. I seem to get one of these every day.
