Shop Products
Houzz Logo Print
runningtrails_gw

WANTED: How much postage

runningtrails
16 years ago

How much postage does it take to send a bubble envelop fill of seeds? I know flat bubble envelope is only $1.10, Is it more when it's full? I need some idea of how much to send with a SASBE, please.

I sent some with $1.10 postage for return. Do you think that will be enough?

Comments (5)

  • bonniepunch
    16 years ago

    Canada Post's rules are that as long as the bubble envelope weighs less than 100g and can fit through a special template they have at the postal counter, $1.10 is the correct postage. My experience is that the vast majority of these bubble envelopes do not fit through their template when they're stuffed with seeds, and so they technically qualify as a 'small package' and the rate goes way up ($5 or more).

    BUT - this extra postage is avoidable 99.9% of the time!! If you take your padded mailer to a postal counter, then they're more likely to charge you the small package rate. Not always, but often enough to make it expensive. If however, you drop it in the mailbox instead of handing it to a clerk, the extra size is usually overlooked, and as long as it weighs less than 100g, your package will usually go through. The rules still exist, but they are just not applied.

    I have mailed out hundreds of padded mailers this way, over the years, and I've only had a handful returned for insufficient postage - I just take it back out to a mailbox and drop it in again (without adding the extra postage) and it always makes it to its destination.

    BP

  • greylady_gardener
    16 years ago

    If I am sending a big amount of seeds, I try to make sure that the seed packs don't bunch up in the envelope, by taping them to a paper so that they stay flat. Like BP says, I just make sure that I have a supply of $1.10 stamps so that I can just drop it in the mailbox. Seeds are pretty light and so as long as I can keep the package flat, then I don't worry about it.

  • runningtrails
    Original Author
    16 years ago

    AH! Good to know! Thank you. I'm much relieved.

  • cziga
    16 years ago

    You sent me a SASBE with 1.10 and it wasn't quite enough. Not a big deal, about 10 cents more that I had to add . . . just so that you know for the future :) I think that mostly, when an envelope is full of seeds (like for seed swaps etc), the postage comes out to a little more than 1.10 . . .

  • tiffy_z5_6_can
    16 years ago

    I avoid the postal outlets managed by Canada Post itself and head to retailers with postal outlets in them. They let me get away with much more. The Canada Post folks are sticklers around here and if there's ANY resistance to that envelope going through the template, they'll hit you for a parcel rate. The retail outlets are manned by employees from the store itself. As an example, I now mail all my things through a postal outlet located in a drugstore right next to my place of work. The workers there are employees of the drugstore and not of Canada Post. I just sent an envelope last week that barely fit through the template and would have been refused by CP employees unless it was parcel price, but these folks let me mail it for the regular price.

    I also do the same as Greylady in terms of taping the seed envelopes to a piece of paper or thin cardboard so they don't bunch-up in the middle of the envelope.