Packing is the one part of selling where the buyer watches you work without being there. The parcel is the only physical thing they get from you, and it arrives before the item does in their mind — they judge it on the doorstep.
Before you touch a box
Do not pack an unpaid order. Check the order is paid first. A win is not a sale until the money is in.
1. Print the slip
Seller → Orders → Print packing slips (to ship), or Print Slips. If nothing is ready you get No orders to print.
The slip carries what goes in the box and who it goes to. Print the batch at once rather than one at a time — the gap between orders is where mistakes happen.
2. Pack it
The judgement here is by category, and there is a page for each one — packing by category and its equivalents for whatever you sell. What applies to everything:
- Immobilise the item. Movement in transit is what breaks things, not impact. If it rattles, it is not packed.
- Two fingers of padding on every side, including the side you cannot see.
- Tape the seams, not the middle. A box opens at its seams.
- Nothing identifying the contents on the outside for anything valuable.
- The item has to be dry and clean. A buyer who opens a parcel and smells your storage remembers that and not the item.
The thing worth more than the padding
A handwritten line. Not a printed insert — a line, with their name on it. It is the cheapest five-star rating available to a small store, and no large seller can copy it. The parcel is part of it.
3. Weigh it, and get this right
This is the step with money attached. A courier bills the greater of actual weight and volume, so a big light box costs you what a heavy one would.
So: use the smallest box the item is safe in. Not the smallest box you have — the smallest box it is safe in. Those are different, and the second one is the answer.
When you put the weight into the order, put in the real weight of the packed parcel, on a scale. + Add a photo of it on a scale exists for exactly this: if the courier later says your parcel weighed more than you declared, that photo is the whole argument. That’s not what it weighed is the route for disputing it, and it works far better with a photograph than without.
Guessing the weight is how a sale quietly becomes a loss.
4. Several wins, one box
If one buyer won three things, do not send three parcels.
Select the orders and use Bundle ({n}). You get {n} orders bundled into 1 parcel, and they then show as In a package · ship it from Ship together. Unbundle ({n}) reverses it.
This is what combined shipping means on your side — one parcel, one charge, one happy buyer who was not billed three times for delivery.
5. Mark it, immediately
Mark the order shipped and add the tracking number when you hand it over, not that evening.
Two reasons, and both are measured. Valid tracking rate wants a tracking number on every courier shipment. Late shipment rate is judged on when you marked it, because marking it is the only evidence that exists — an order posted on time and marked two days late counts as late.
The parcel that comes back
Pack as though it might be returned, because some will be. An item that arrives safely and is returned in your own packaging is a refund; one that arrives safely and comes back damaged in a bag is an argument.
Questions people ask
What packaging should I buy?
Boxes in two or three sizes you actually use, bubble wrap, paper for void fill, and good tape. Do not buy printed branded boxes before you know your volumes.
Do I need a label printer?
Not at first. Handwriting is fine for a few orders a week. It stops being fine at the point where you dread the writing — that is the signal, not a number.
Can I reuse boxes?
Yes, if they are sound and you remove the old labels completely. A reused box with someone else's barcode on it gets delivered to someone else.
Who pays if the courier damages it?
That depends on how it was packed and what the evidence shows, which is why photographs of the packed parcel are worth the ten seconds. How buyer protection works.
Should I include a free gift?
A note beats a gift. A gift the buyer did not want is clutter; a line in your handwriting is a person.
More: how to pack an order, the parcel is part of it, how delivery is charged.