This is part two of a three part series called “How To Ship Sports Cards The Right Way”. In this post we will cover some of the more popular shipping services and their various tiers needed to get your cards safely out the door. To read “Part 1: Supplies” click here. If you are looking to jump ahead to Part 3 – “Tips & Tricks” click here.
*One thing to call out for this specific section. I use eBay in my examples below, as it is still the top marketplace for card sales, but there are many platforms to sell cards. A form of these examples is always available regardless of the platform. Further research may be necessary, but application of the following principles can be used regardless of your marketplace.
In Part 1, we mentioned a golden rule, “Don’t gamble with your shipping!” It applies to the Shipping Services section as well as the previous “Part 1: Supplies” section. Try to save a buck by selecting the wrong tier of service, it could cost you. We will touch on the various shipping companies and tiers in this section. Be on the lookout for the final section “Best Practices” coming later this week, as we will cover some of the things to do and not do.
In this section we want to introduce a second rule. This rule can be the difference between a successful sale and a disaster.
Rule #2: Always ship with tracking!
No matter what option you choose, make sure it has tracking included. Ship without tracking and you have no proof that your item ever made it to the destination. A buyer can easily turn around and say, “Hey, I never received this item! Are you trying to scam me? Please refund my purchase!” Without tracking, how can you ever prove them wrong?
The Main Options
There are three main companies collectors use to ship sports cards. As you may have guessed, they are also the three most well known shipping options for small parcel in North America. Depending on what you are shipping and the value of your shipment, the companies utilized the most are UPS, USPS, and Fedex.
UPS and Fedex offer a similar small parcel shipping experience, albeit with a few twists. Conceptually, they are the same. The differences start to show with USPS (United States Postal Service, AKA, the government agency who delivers our daily mail.)
Service Option #1: USPS
USPS is probably the most widely used shipping method for sports cards. If you are an ebay seller, it is prominently offered with discounted rates. The USPS has various tiers for shipping your cards. Below is a screen shot taken from eBay. It shows the shipping selections page for a single sports card under $20 value:
We want to focus on the top two options; eBay Standard Envelope & USPS Ground Advantage. These are the two most widely used in the sports card world for shipments of single cards.
USPS Ground Advantage
We are going to start with this one, as it is the option I find myself utilizing for most of my shipments. USPS Ground Advantage is a new option that replaces the famed USPS First-Class Package Service. The big difference between the two is that Ground Advantage comes with $100 insurance and yes, you can pay for more coverage. It also includes tracking!
Here are the weight & size stipulations for USPS Ground Advantage:
Your classic bubble mailer fits inside of these parameters with room to spare. This makes USPS Ground Advantage the goto option for low cost, yet insured shipping. Anything with a value over $20 and this is the defacto service!
The typical cost, using the included insurance, weight and size specs, sits right under $4. This will get your bubble mailer pretty much anywhere in the continental US.
eBay Standard Envelope
You may be asking, but what if I am shipping a single card of minimal value? Maybe a single card under $20 and of regular thickness and stock. For this instance, we have a newer service called eBay Standard Envelope. This is also known around the hobby as PWE or Plain White Envelope. Why? you guessed it, it is shipped in a plain old envelope.
Ebay Standard Envelope can only be used for a few different categories:
- Patches
- Stickers & Decals
- Greeting Cards
- Seeds
- Trading Cards
- Coins & Currency
- Postcards
- Stamps
This PWE option provides a low cost way to ship a single card, or sometimes two, depending on thickness. It typically runs around 75 cents, give or take a dime, to get your card anywhere in the continental US.
The drawbacks come with the security of your card during shipment. Being that you cannot ship via PWE at a thickness over 1/4 inch, it leaves little room to secure the card. A top loader is about all you can utilize for protection. I have had a few of these sent back to me as they cannot pass through the rollers in the sorting process. That’s a poor experience for all involved and an added cost to the seller in the long run. the more frustrating aspect centers around the consistency, as some seem to pass through and some others packed the same way do not.
This limited protection can leave your card in peril of damage in shipment. It gets tossed, stuffed, and thrown around as any envelope would. Whatever you do to protect the card, just remember it needs to come in at less than a 1/4 inch thickness total with the envelope. For this reason, many collectors refuse to take a card that is shipped via PWE. Opinions vary on this subject and you are probably going to start an argument when it is brought up in hobby conversation!
PWE in general does not have tracking service either. Remember what we said above about tracking? It’s essential to the shipping process with cards. This is where eBay stepped in and added tracking to their eBay Standard Envelope service, making it a more appealing option. They also limit its use to sales under $20.
Here is an advisory note on eBay’s site regarding the service:
It’s a dicey option in the end, but if you are selling low value items, it may be the only one that makes sense from a cost standpoint. As a rule of thumb, I rarely use this option for cards that sell at a price over $10.
Service Option #2: UPS Ground & Fedex Ground
The hobby typically utilizes these services when the value of the item is higher, the size required of the shipment is beyond that of a bubble mailer, or the urgency of the shipment is greater. Regardless, they cost more for a reason.
Trying to nail down a cost to ship a card using these services relies on many variables. For that matter, assume they will be 3-4x what you pay with USPS Ground Advantage at a minimum. That said, the reliability of these services far outperforms that of USPS.
In our experience, USPS Ground can take anywhere from a couple days to a couple weeks to make it to the desired destination. UPS and Fedex quote around 2-5 days for ground delivery. Does it always work this way? No. Not 100% of the time. Does it usually work this way? Yes.
One of the biggest benefits aside from shipment delivery time is the tracking and trace capabilities. The tracking for UPS and Fedex, in our experience, is far more detailed, reliable and consistent. Remember, tracking is the big rule of thumb for this section! Not too mention, in our experience, the process for a lost shipment, yes it happens, and the tracing of that lost shipment is far easier through UPS or Fedex than it is with USPS.
Here are details from each site for UPS Ground and Fedex Ground.
Conclusion – Shipment Services
So what do you use? Well, like we stated above, the USPS Ground Advantage is what the hobby uses as its goto service if shipping through eBay or via other platforms. Packaged correctly, this will handle almost any single card reliably at a cost that is not detrimental to the sale. Is it perfect? No. Are any of the services mentioned above perfect? No.
One thing to remember, when transacting in the hobby, the shipping and transfer of the card is the “hold your breath” moment for all parties. 98% of the time, all goes well. It’s the 2% that can cause pain and the service you choose can determine whether that sting is a small twinge of pain or a large headache for you and your buyer.
Part 3 – Tips & Tricks – can be found here!