Chances are if you are purchasing shipping supplies online, you are a pretty heavy volume shipper.  Finding ways to lower your costs to ship your product is probably on your radar screen.  Here are 8 ideas that you can use to cut your packaging and shipping costs:

1. Use the lightest possible packaging materials.  The heavier your package weighs, the more it costs to ship it.  Be careful not to ‘over pack’ it.  Use items like bubble mailers and bubble wrap that protect your package, but doesn’t add much weight.
2. If your item weighs less than 13 ounces, use USPS First Class Mail.
3. If your package weighs between 2 pounds and 10 pounds – and you are shipping less than 4 zones, consider USPS Priority Mail.
4. Buy you shipping materials in bulk.  Online retailers, like TopMailers.com, offer excellent prices for larger volumes of poly mailers, bubble mailers, boxes, etc.
5. Use a single carrier to ship the majority of your items.  You will have better negotiation power and you will become more familiar with their system to avoid unforeseen add-0n fees.
6. Try to use envelopes (poly mailers, bubble mailers, poly bubble mailers) instead of a box whenever possible.  The envelope will cost less and weigh less.
7. Make sure your product fits within the dimensional limits of your carrier.  Typically, the cubic size of your package (HxWxL) will have to be less than 5,200 cubic inches.  You will be hit with big fees if you exceed this limit.
8. Try to ship your package to your customer’s business address rather than their home.  There is usually about a $2 fee to ship to a home address.