Choose the Right Packing Materials for Your eBay Shipments

By Marsha Collier from eBay Business All-in-One For Dummies, 2nd Edition

As an eBay seller, you should use packing materials that keep your shipments in one piece as they travel to your buyer. You can ship your items in quality packing, keep buyers happy, and still make a dollar or so on each item for your handling fees.

Void fill is the industry term for the stuff you use to fill up space in shipping boxes to keep items from rolling in transit. There are many forms of void fill, and the best kind depends on the item you’re shipping. Here are the most popular types, and a description of their plusses and minuses:

Air packing pillows: Buying air packing pillows from sellers on eBay is economical, mainly because the manufacturing and shipping costs are low. What these folks are essentially shipping you is 99 percent air (something the post office hasn’t yet figured out how to charge for). You can find air pillows in the Business and Industrial category.

Air packing pillows are perfect for filling in the area around smaller boxed items that you want to double box. They are also handy if you have breakables that you’ve prewrapped in bubble wrap; just use the pillows to fill out the box. They’re crushproof and can support plus or minus 150 pounds without a blowout.
Bubble wrap: Made up of air-filled cushions of polyethylene, bubble wrap is supplied in rolls of different widths and lengths. It shines for those who wrap delicate, breakable items. When wrapping an item with bubble wrap, wrap it one way and then the other, and then affix some packing tape to make your item an impenetrable ball. Depending on your product, you may have to carry two sizes of bubble wrap to properly protect the goods. Bubble wrap is reasonably priced (check out the many vendors on eBay) and adds next to no weight to your packages.

Different sizes of bubble wrap.
Styrofoam packing peanuts: Every serious eBay seller has to have a stock of packing peanuts. When properly placed in a box, peanuts fill every nook and cranny and cushion your shipment to make it virtually indestructible. They’re handy for padding Tyvek envelopes and filling boxes so that items don’t shift around. A bonus: They’re cheap, and if you reuse and recycle them, they don’t hurt the environment.