And third, the item has to fit in a box I already have. They'd probably require double boxing and a few sleepless nights. It would be best to ship in a tube but they make too much noise rolling around the back of my truck. There is, actually, an entire industry of small business owners who open stores with the sole function of shipping items for you. Each box is brand new, packing material is top of the line, and the final packed product looks nice enough to stick under a Christmas tree.
Prices start at a gazillion dollars.
Low minimum bid and no reserve. Buyer pays all of his Social Security benefits for shipping and handling. The United States Postal Service has tried to make things a bit easier. To its credit, the USPS's Priority Mail, which usually is not too much more than First Class, includes free boxes. These boxes actually can work quite well, but since it now seems to be a federal requirement that everyone between the ages of 8 and 68 has to be selling online, the local post office is often out of these freebies.