Postal Letter

Do you have to hand pre-paid thick envelopes to a USPS employee, or can you put them in the drop box?

I'm an Ebay seller and sell quite a few items on a regular basis. I use the USPS feature built into Ebay to print my USPS shipping labels directly through Paypal. So the postage is already paid on them. I use the typical bubblewrap 4 inch x 7 inch small cushioned mailers that you can buy at just about any retail store. I securely tape the pre-paid USPS label on it, and so far, I've been dropping them off to USPS employees at the counter. But my only local post office always has a HUGE line at it, because they are always understaffed. Can I put these pre-paid ones in the drop box for thick envelopes/packages? I've never tried it, and I was just wondering. However, I don't want to lose an item if that's the wrong place. Thanks.

Public Comments

1. I've shipped first class, media, parcel post, and priority all from my mailbox. As long as the postage is paid and it fits in the box everything seems fine. I should say however that I don't know the post office's official policy on this. It's the way I've been doing things and they haven't said anything yet. But it couldn't hurt to visit usps.com or your post office and ask just to be sure.
2. If you have paid postage from any online source you can put any package into any collection box. It MUST be a PC Postage product. The restriction is an item that weighs MORE than 13 ounces AND has postage paid with adhesive postage stamps. You are printing from an online source. If you have delivery at your home, you can also schedule a free Carrier Pickup for the next day and you do not even need to go to a collection box. The requirement for that is that you have at least one Priority Mail item to go and all other types and classes of properly prepared items will be picked up at the same time. The other thing is that it is for the next day so you need to print the correct mailing date on your labels.