Atthe beginning, we learned many useful tips from the USPS clerks. Theyare a good source of information. Thanks to them we learned aboutthe flat rate shipping boxes and how much money we can save by usingthem.

As we mentioned, weight is used to calculate shipping costs. Anotherfactor that needs to be taken under consideration is the postal zonewhere your customer resides. Something to keep in mind is that the higher the zone number, the moreexpensive it is to ship items. Let us explain, we live in Californiawhich is zone 1 and we want to ship to New York which is zone 8. Thecost of the shipping for a 2 lbs item using Priority Mail would be $9.55. On the other hand, if the 2 lbs item was to be shipped to zone 3, the cost would only be $5.35. To further explain the postal zones, please take a look at the Postal Zone Chart.

Click Here for the USPS Postal Zone Chart

Do not forget to take advantage of the Flat Rate Shipping Boxes that the USPS offers. They might save you money.
This is the manual way of calculating shipping. You can also visit the USPS.com to automatically calculate postage for packages. You only need to know the zip code and the weight of the package to calculate postage.

Click here for the USPS.com Postage Calculator

You can even print Shipping Labels if you sign up with the USPS.com site. Signing up is free.

In our case, every scale that we ship includes the USPS shipping fees printout under the lid of the scale. You can download the same information here if you wish to print it out yourself.

Click here to download the Updated 2010 USPS Fees Chart

After downloading, if you print the Fees Chart, it will look like the one below. If you have a Digiweigh Scale it will fit perfectly on top of the outdated chart.