Postal Letter

If I ship USPS with Priority mail small flat rate box, would that be a problem?

I am trying to print shipping labels online at USPS and it came out to 8 bucks for normal priority mail and 4.50 for priority flat rate box mail. Would it be a problem if I chose this method and didn't have the thing im shipping in a flat rate box but rather a small box of my own?

Public Comments

1. If I am understanding your question correctly, you will need to use their boxes for that rate. In my experience it is usually cheaper to ship it in your own box if you can get to the post office. 4.50 is cheap! Can you see an example of this packaging on their website? Sounds like a letter size flat envelope type pack, not a dimensional box.
2. Priority mail has basically three package types: flat rate envelopes, flat rate boxes and priority mail boxes. For either of the flat rate services you must use the USPS packages--they supply them for free--and the cost is the same regardless of the weight of the package. For standard Priority Mail, you can use either USPS supplied free boxes (which are different sizes than flat rate boxes and do not have the words "Flat Rate" printed on them), or you can use your own boxes and mark the Priority Mail. In this case, however, the shipping charges are a function of the package weight. You can print the prepaid shipping label for any type of Priority Mail online. You can not print pprepaid Parcel Post labels online at the USPS site.