Shipping tons of books through media mail?

Question

I'm selling a bunch of book lots through ebay and I plan on taking one big trip or two to the post office to ship them. I heard they inspect to make sure it's media mail, so does it mean I wait until the post person sees it's books until I tape the box up? Because I have like 6 boxes of books I'm going to ship and I've already wrapped them in bubble wrap and put newspapers around the books and I don't want them to take the books out and I have to redo it again. X_X anyone have any experience shipping media mail? I don't want to use click n ship because i dont know the exact weight, but they are all between 2-5 lbs.

Answer 1

The problem with media mail is that it is an abused category.

However, books have weight and if the shape and weight makes sense for a book you are fine.  (They can x-ray them and it's unlikely they will open them.)  I'd open the conversation with the clerk as "Hi, these are books, what's the cheapest rate they can be shipped at?"

I always compare all of the shipping rates.  Media is SLOW.  Media goes on a space available basis meaning it can either zip thru, take a 4-6 weeks, or (horrors) get lost.  If the difference in rate is $1-2, I'll pay it as I hate waiting for week.  

(The longer the item is in the system, the more abuse the packaging will get and the more likelihood the item gets lost.  I made a huge mistake once in using whitish packaging to ship 40-50 items media/bound printed matter.  I am convinced the packages flipped over in a those giant carts, filtered to the bottom and that's where some of them still are.  10% of them NEVER made it to their destination.)