It is now officially December and holiday shipping is at hand. The United States Postal Service website is a plethora of information and is chalked full of helpful tools for this season's holiday shipping. I have been visiting the post office a lot lately for the Vale Design Paper Goods shop and I have had to educate myself very quickly to the USPS inner workings. They are making shipping so much easier and user friendly, plus the workers at my local branch have been very supportive of my business and extremely helpful. Here are a couple of online tools that may make your holiday shipping less stressful.
• Buy stamps online {no more waiting in line!}
• Priority Mail boxes - If it fits, it ships! {This shipping method has become my favorite. Boxes are well made and secure. Free boxes and set pricing is the way to go! Please note that price increases slightly for international shipping and there is an international weight limit.}
• Print Click-N-Ship® shipping labels from home {yet another way to avoid lines! Check online system requirements.}
• Some branches are open 24 hours and have Automated Postal Centers. {yet a third way to avoid lines! See a trend here?!}
Above is the USPS December Holiday shipping calendar. For a by Christmas delivery, they recommend having USA packages mailed by December 14th or 15th. For international, have packages sent by December 8th or 9th. The Vale Design Paper Goods shop will be following these dates for shipping. All items requiring shipping that are purchased or shipped after these dates, if requested by buyer, will have additional rush charges. This excludes any printable PDFs. These can be emailed up to the very last second!
A couple thoughts of advice from me:
1. Be patient while in line during the holidays, with the workers and the people around you. Huffing and puffing about the woman in front of you will NOT move you forward in line any quicker. Take a breath. It is going to be fine :)
2. Be as prepared as you possibly can when it is your turn. The branch workers are required to ask a lot of questions, so be prepared to answer, do you want stamps, does this package contain dangerous goods, tracking, insurance, etc. Do your part to help them do theirs!
Good luck and happy holiday shipping!
{calendar image credit USPS}
