I buy all my shipping supplies at E-Supply.

http://www.esupplystore.com/

They have bubble mailers, book-fold boxes, tape, bubble wrap, etc...

Another trick I have learned is that, if I take my stuff to the main/central Post Office in town as opposed to my local branch so my packages are delivered about one day faster.  Fortunately, the main Post Office is close to my work, so I just drop stuff off on my way.  My feedback includes lots of fast shipping comments.

I ship internationally often.  I require Registered Mail ($7.90) for all shipments to Italy.  The Italian Post Office loses packages and seriously delays packages all the time.  However, I mostly sell miniatures so my packages are light.

bclarkie wrote:
Axel, flat Rate boxes do have a weight limit of 20 lbs, however you can't just use any old box and ask for the Flat rate.  There are 2 very specific types of boxes that the USPS supplies you that are meant only for flat rate.  Any other box other than those 2 types of boxes, no matter what they look like in size or shape are not eligible for Flat rate shipping.  Here is a link that shows the 2 boxes in question:

http://www.stamps.com/export/client/pos ... boxes.html

Keep in mind though that although those prices from that page are not up to date, the boxes themselves are still the same sizes.

ah-ahhh... ok! now it seems much more reasonable! tnx a lot for the link!
ciao

Advice please.  I have a package which weighs 7 lbs 10 oz., so it's too heavy for the First Class International Rate.  The item I am selling is worth $150.00, so I need to get this right.  The address is to Spain so there's no Delivery Confirmation on a shipment to that country.  The way I see it, I have two options I am considering.  

1) I buy my postage through eBay, then take it to the Post Office and also pay for Registered Mail which works as good as Delivery Confirmation as far as eBay is concerned.  IF the Post Office will allow me to do this, as I may have to buy everything at once meaning I lose my eBay postage discount.

2) I buy my postage on eBay with insurance and forget Registered Mail.  If the buyer says he didn't get it, I must refund the buyer all his money but I make an insurance claim with the Post Office which means I lose all money paid for postage.....unless I claim the item is worth was paid on eBay plus the postage costs which I am pretty sure I can not do since the Post Office needs to verify the value of the item.

I am leaning towards option #1.  Thoughts?  

Follow up and lessons learned: I had to go with option #2.  The buyer had obviously bought a significant amount of rpg stuff and had good feedback, so I decided to go ahead with the sale as I had considered cancelling it.  The reason I had to go with #2 is that, Registered Mail was not an option for Spain.  Just like Italy and Greece, insurance was my only protection.  Since I had bought this item (Caste Whiterock) BITD for just $49.00, by selling it and insuring it for $149.00, I was going to come out ahead anyway.  The best news of all was that I received positive feedback last night, so the buyer obviously received and liked the item.  That meant, no insurance claims or further hassles.  Whew!

Sadly, this means Spain will now be on my restricted list of places where I sell, just like Italy and Greece.  Oh well.