eBay Sellers - Life Without Padded Envelopes

Think you can't survive being a seller on eBay without padded envelopes? You sure can! Padded envelopes are a good thing to use for smaller items, but what if you want to ship without using them? It doesn't make it necessarily harder, but will take a bit of creativity and some resourcefulness to ship small items without it eventually becoming cost-prohibitive to ship this way. In this article, some alternatives to padded envelopes will be presented, as well as what advantages, if any, they have over the real thing.

Homemade packaging, while cost effective, may turn people off to your products. An ordinary box, newspaper and some tape is all that's needed to ship things, anyway, but it's all in the presentation. How happy would your customer be to receive an item in a plain brown box filled with useless and wasteful paper? For smaller items, wrapping it in layers of cut recycled cardboard with a vinyl tie to hold it in place shows the ultimate in eco-friendliness, but if you want to go green with your packaging without looking poor, consider Arofol Classic padded envelopes, which are manufactured using FSC paper derived from responsible forestry utilisation.

If you want to be really resourceful, you can always use any extra smaller boxes you have lying around or other containers, like a cereal box. Using containers like these will add some charm to your shipping, and it gives your customer a reusable container. This is especially useful for items that come in hard, durable casing; these items don't necessarily need to be packaged. Just slap an address on it somewhere and send it along. That saves lots of money on shipping and saves the recipient from throwing away a padded envelope and all the accompanying packing materials that go along with it.

So, if you're an avid seller on eBay and you're looking to avoid using padded envelopes to save a few pounds on shipping, consider using alternative methods for shipping, such as leftover containers. However, you run the risk of looking cheap and tacky if you don't change anything about the container, such as putting your own label on it or decorating it in a festive way. Even though the container is leftover, there are small things you can do to make it your own. Plastic storage containers can also be effective ways to ship items, provided enough tape to seal the top is used.