On the odd occasion, I spend some time selling items on Trade Me or eBay which at times is to get rid of stuff around the house we no longer need and at other times when I’ve come across something dirt cheap (be it online or offline) that I can make a decent profit on.

One of the costs associated with selling items is the cost of shipping. If this isn’t factored into the selling price, you could easily end up in a situation where it’s not worth your while. The same goes for small businesses that ship orders out to customers both locally and internationally.

Depending on size and scale of the business, the manner in which customer orders are handle will vary. They can range from having distribution warehouses for large organisations all the way down to regular visits to the post shop or prearranged courier pick up for smaller businesses. In the case of individuals or businesses who make regular trips to the post shop to ship products to customers, a postage solution option to consider is New Zealand Posts’ ‘Print Postage Online’.

Why Use Print Postage Online

NZ Post gives you the option to organise postage for parcels being shipped within New Zealand or overseas. The process is really simple and all that you need to do is go to the Print Postage Online page, chose where it is going > provide parcel weight and dimension information (for international packages, you will need to provide more accurate information) > enter ship to and from address details and proceed to checkout (that easy!).

It saves you time in that you have very little interaction with people in the post shop. Imagine a situation where you have lets say 10 parcels to send off to your customers; processing them at the counter may take a bit of a while where as if you process it online, print out the necessary postage and attach the labels to the parcels, you save yourself precious time.

Another upside of using their service is ParcelRewards where as a rewarded for using their services on a regular basis, you get a discount. This particular offering saves you money and the amount you get to save is dependent on your parcel sending spend. How is works is pretty simple, spend $50 and get 5% off, spend $500 and get 8% off, spend $1500 and get 10% off.

What you will need

At a minimum, you will need a computer, printer to print out your postage labels and in some instances, a scale such as an Accuteck S All-In-One Digital Shipping Postal Scale (available on Amazon and ships to New Zealand). As far as parcel weight goes, when it comes to sending packages within New Zealand, you don’t need to be accurate with the weight as postage is calculated in weight ranges. On the other hand, when it comes to international parcels, you do need to provide accurate details. NZ Post verifies the weight of parcels being sent internationally and if something is underweight, they adjust the weight and charge accordingly.

If you send out packages on a regular basis and make regular trips to the post shop, it may be a good idea to look into this option and save yourself some time and money.

Do you have any other ways of saving money on shipping?