Think back to when you were a child and imagine your room. did you have posters on the wall? most likely you answered “yes!” Posters are a time-honored tradition for kids to hang in their rooms all over the world, but it’s not just kids doing it these days. there are tons of fans and memorabilia collectors still buying posters, which means there’s a huge market for online sellers…and that means there are plenty of poster sellers too. If you are one of them and are looking for guidance, you have come to the right place. This article is about how to ship posters, including how to package them correctly and how to save the most money doing so. let’s roll!
index
- roll up banners and pack inside cylindrical shipping tubes
- priority mail based on weight is the most economical service for shipping banners
- usps and other carriers consider tubes as “irregular packages”
- consider purchasing shipping insurance for your poster
- save money on priority mail labels with online shipping software
roll up the banners and pack them inside cylindrical mailing tubes
The first thing to consider when shipping posters is how to pack them properly. As a general rule in the industry (and in life), you never want to fold your poster! instead, roll it into a cylinder as tightly as you can and gently place it inside a cardboard shipping tube. most tubes are cylindrical in shape, making them the perfect packaging option for shipping signs.
If you’re looking for cardboard tubes, the uline website has many options to meet your needs. You can also order free Priority Mail tubes on the USPS website that will come right to your door, free of charge! We’ve linked the two different tube options the USPS offers below:
- priority mail/priority express small tube (~26 inches long)
- priority mail/priority express medium tube (~38 inches long)
priority mail based on weight is the cheapest service for shipping posters
Once inside the tubes, most banners are at least half a meter wide. Even the smallest option of the USPS tubes we linked to above is about 26 inches long. Because of this, most tubes unfortunately do not qualify for USPS First Class Parcel Service rates, even though they are technically lightweight shipments (the maximum length a package can be to qualify for a First Class package is 22 inches). therefore, the cheapest service available to ship posters is usps priority mail.
pro tip: if you use the priority mail tubes you can get from the usps website, you still have to pay for priority mail service!
usps and other carriers consider tubes as “irregular packages”
the only drawback to shipping a poster in a tube with usps is that you will likely incur additional surcharges on top of the cost of shipping. As of April 3, 2022, the USPS imposes surcharges on most mail tubes as part of their new “non-standard rates” they introduced. Two of these rates may apply to your banner shipment, depending on the length of your tube. we have listed those two non-standard rates below:
- $4 if any length of your package exceeds 22 inches but is less than 30 inches
- $15 if any length of your package exceeds 30 inches
note: these costs are added to the cost of shipping. So, as a simple example, if your tube costs $10 to ship priority mail but is 25 inches long, you’ll pay a total of $14.
For more information on these surcharges, see our article on the new USPS non-standard fees.
Consider purchasing shipping insurance for your poster
Posters are not fragile items by any means…but they can sometimes be damaged in transit if the tube is punctured or bent. When this happens, the posters are insurmountable and you may have to spend out of pocket to send another one to your recipient. however, you can protect against this possibility by protecting your package with shipping insurance.
When you purchase shipping insurance, you can make a claim for the full declared value of your package if it is lost or damaged during transit. It usually only costs a couple of bucks to insure the full value of an item like a poster, so in our experience it’s well worth the investment.
save money on priority mail labels with online shipping software
While you will incur banner shipping surcharges nearly 99% of the time with the new USPS rate structure, there are still ways you can get some money back in your pocket. Without a doubt, the best strategy for this is to use online shipping software to purchase USPS labels at deep discounts.
When you use the shipping software, you gain access to special levels of discounts that carriers like USPS typically only give to large commercial carriers that ship more than 50,000 packages per year. this level of discounts for usps is known as commercial pricing… and with the best shipping software options out there, you’ll be able to ship at these discounts for no additional charge on top of your shipping costs. in some cases, these discounts can save you 33% off what you would pay to ship the same package with priority mail at your local post office. If you’re an online seller who ships out a lot of posters, these savings can end up putting a ton of money back in your pocket!