Questions about shipping things...

[pdrobber]

I went through some of my old textbooks today and decided to sell them on amazon as used. I listed them all to be the lowest prices so they would go quick and I just sold one for $32, a new one of those costs $50. I brought it to my local packaging store and the guy there told me it would cost $20 to ship it, about $15 if I went to the post office instead.

Using Amazon to sell them, it says I get $3.99 credit for standard shipping. Amazon gets $7.14 and I get $28.85. However, I just spend $20.45 to ship the 2 lbs stupid textbook in a padded envelope, not even a box (which I'm having second thoughts about because there is a CD included in the back cover and it's not a hardcover).

So, why is amazon giving so little for shipping credit when it appears shipping by any method would be at least probably $10?! Plus, that's if I really looked for a good deal...not to mention the second thoughts I'm having about if I copied the mailing address over correctly from the invoice onto the shipping label...oh man...

Is there anyway to ship a 2lbs book for actually $3.99?

I get $12 more than I had in my pocket if I had just let the textbook sit in my apartment, but maybe I should have just gone and sold it back to the college bookstore as used where I could have gotten some more probably...this just adds to my already great year so far

 

[dmmj]

Will it fit in the USPS priority envelope for 5 dollars?

 

[pdrobber]

just my luck, I think it would have. I guess I will learn from my first shipping experience.

 

[SulcataSquirt]

I found its sometimes cheaper to just ship in the flat rate boxes or priority envelopes/boxes. Otherwise they generally go by weight being shipped. All their info is on their website you should check it out. If you use a scale that measures ounces for your torts, you can use it to measure what your shipping too and calculate it on their website what it'd cost or if your better off using a flat rate option. (I also learned the hard way)