Small Biz Tips: How To Save Money On Postage Costs

Attempting to carve out a living with a tiny online business means loads of hard work, insanely long hours and a lot of frustration with just about everything bureaucratic that is completely out of your control but necessary for your business to thrive, such as the postal service.

As I spent over 2 decades living and working in Europe and Asia I have the rather unique experience of using the postal services in several different countries – none of which were as expensive & frustrating as Canada post. For some bizarre reason Canadian postage prices are over 5 times more expensive than anything I ever paid for national or international post while living abroad in Japan, England, Greece and Germany and is over double the cost of the US postal service.

Since returning to Canada I have had to close and lose the income of my fab online shop that successfully ran for 4 years in Berlin because the cost of shipping was simply too expensive. To illustrate the shocking difference between postage costs I created the handy graphic below using identical shipping information with the current 2019 online rate calculators for German and Canadian postal services:

If you’re trying to run a small online business that depends on the postal service or if you simply want to spend less when mailing gifts and letters my Small Biz Tips: How To Save Money On Postage Costs will definitely help you keep those post office prices as low as possible:

Have a tailor’s measure & digital kitchen scale on hand to determine the exact dimensions & weight of your package. Most postal services have an online rate calculator that allows you to input the package information to provide your estimated rate options.

Send tightly packed, light items when possible – the smaller and lighter your package, the cheaper it will be to send. (I fold & layer clothing as flat as possible when packing in an envelope and roll it, then pack it in stacked rows in boxed packages)

Skip the extras – if insurance, registration or signatures aren’t needed don’t add them to the postage cost.

Use upcycled materials to pack your post – There’s absolutely no need to purchase expensive mailing boxes and packing materials from the postal service. Your recycling bin is full of completely awesome, perfectly sized boxes for packing (regular sized cereal boxes can hold A LOT of light items & are generally affordable to send as they are a similar size to the small mailing boxes available at the post office).

Send it by “surface” – if time isn’t a major issue, don’t use airmail. “Regular” or “surface” post is driven across N. America and usually arrives in 5 – 10 business days anyway so unless your post needs to arrive immediately it’s definitely cheaper to send it by surface mail. International surface is shipped by cargo boat and can arrive in 14 – 30 days depending on the service used.

Unfortunately postage prices vary greatly depending on where you are in the world however my tips above should help keep those ridiculous mailing costs as low as possible.

Check out my personalized Refashionista Boxes here (keep in mind that my very reasonable prices include shipping) and and then continue your passion for upcycling and refashion with my Confessions of a Refashionista e-book series (instant downloads mean no postage is required, hooray!)  These also makes a fab thrifty gifty for anyone interested in sustainability and DIY!