No substantial discount versus paying for FedEx shipping through Ebay. There may be value in using them if its a private sale.
Originally Posted by
nesteel
I have a "regular guy" account. If you place of employment is agreeable, it's a heckuva lot cheaper to ship business to business. Using my fed account and dropping off at a FedEx location, I shipped a frame set from Lincoln to Washington state for $47, to a residential address. Just having the account makes things much cheaper. I've had the counter person mess up and run a shipment through without my account, as I was pretty happy with the rate after they used my account number instead. Somewhere along the lines of 20% less.
Unfortunately there's no way to use my place of employment as a business to get a better discount. I highly doubt they'd stack discounts i.e. business discount on top of the Ebay discount.
Originally Posted by
RoadGuy
I'd take any money saving announcement that comes through eBay or PayPal with a grain of salt.
When eBay announced their money saving shipping program advertising up to a 37% savings if a Seller paid for USPS Shipping going through eBay, I carefully compared the rate quotes to prices available by visiting the Post Office or pay online directly to USPS through the USPS Website. The rates from eBay are the same that you get directly from the USPS Online Site. There isn't any discount that you don't already get dealing directly with the USPS. And there was never a 37% discount from the USPS Customer Counter Rate.
The FedEx discounts are real.
The USPS discounts not so much. For the big USPS discounts you need to be a gold level power seller or whatever their top seller rating is these days and such (I struggle to maintain bronze level). Regardless of the discount being the same as buying postage online through USPS.COM, there are other benefits of paying directly through Ebay.