Jennifer Culic: What are you on about? I've never heard of that! Canada Post maybe, but not USPS.
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USPS is by far the easiest if you are doing it yourself.
There are some other things to consider as well, like is cheap shipping something your demographic will be expecting or are they ok with extra for shipping?
I set up distribution for an independent film company in Nova Scotia, that's where we are from and we explored many many options. It was a rather daunting task, but we pulled through it.
We started with Canada Post and a note to the wise (anyone), avoid Canada Post for point of Origin, with all your life.
But what we landed on as being the absolute best, was ShipWire (
www.shipwire.com).
We paid a very small monthly fee and stored our goods in their warehouse(s).
We started with one warehouse and I believe we are now in 3 or 4 warehouses... for the same small monthly fee.
We paid something like $25/month to be in one warehouse in the US and now we pay something like $25/month to be in warehouses in Canada, USA and Europe. Nope $25/month/warehouse, just $25/month for all 3 or 4 warehouses together.
ShipWire has this fantastic benefit that I haven't seen elsewhere (doesn't mean it's not out there though), where it connects to your store so when a customer enters their shipping location for a shipping quote, it instantly determines which is the best warehouse to ship to them from and quote based on prices from that location.
Here some other stuff to sweeten the deal!
You can have some products in some warehouses and not others.
If you are based in the US and already have fulfilment set up at your own warehouse, you can use the ShipWire Ship Anywhere Beta Program, which effectively makes your already existing warehouse one of the shipping out locations within your personal warehouse network.
So, you could use two of their locations internationally and continue to use your own within the USA.
They can also act as a shipping calculator, displaying prices in USPS, FEDEX, Royal Mail, UPS, Canada Post etc... so your customers can pick what they want, and you don't have to predetermine what you think is best for them.
The next is beneficial whether you use PayPal or not!!!
To make it even easier on you... ShipWire can be approved for payments through PayPal's pre-approved payments function.
Example explains it (I hope)... Someone adds items to their cart, ShipWire produces the shipping quotes, they choose what they want and complete the checkout process. The order is then sent to ShipWire for shipment. ShipWire sends an invoice to your PayPal account, and as ShipWire is pre-approved for payments, PayPal pays ShipWire what they requested and your product is shipped out immediately without any delay.
It is then your only job to make sure what your are selling is selling and that your warehouse inventory remains in-stock... I believe it can track inventory to your website too.
Now, if you don't use PayPal, don't fret.
PayPal can connect automatically to your bank account so that you do not need a PayPal balance in order to remit funds to someone. You just use them as a free go between to transfer funds.
What do you think? It works pretty well for my clients!
