How to Use PayPal Shipping with UPS

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

By using PayPal, an eBay seller can streamline the buyer’s shopping experience, making it simple to buy, click, and pay. Along with all the timesaving tools PayPal supplies for the seller, they now offer online shipping services for items through the U.S. Postal Service or UPS at no extra charge. This is a convenient system for those who don’t ship many packages each week because it doesn't require additional software or an additional service.

However, the PayPal postage system can make bookkeeping a nightmare for large-scale shippers. That’s because PayPal withdraws the postage amounts directly from your PayPal account balance. This is problematic because your books won’t balance: Your final deposits won’t match your posted eBay or Web sales.

You can make this work more efficiently by posting your PayPal sales to your bookkeeping program and then withdrawing your money before processing your shipping. Then simply charge your shipping to a credit card, which will help you balance your books at month’s end.

When you deliver merchandise to your eBay customers, UPS charges different rates based on how often you use their services. If you’re shipping many packages a week, it might be best if you print your labels directly from the UPS site.

When you’re ready to deal with shipping, follow these steps:

Log in to your PayPal account.
Click the Ship button next to the item you want to ship.

You arrive at the page shown here.
Choose UPS and click Continue.

You'll be brought to a page that requests this information:
- UPS account: You can open a new UPS account immediately online or, if you have an existing UPS account number, you may type it in this field.
  
  To open a new account, you’ll have to verify your company data (it’s already entered here from your PayPal account information) and let UPS know approximately how many packages you ship a week.
- Shipping payment information: You also have to indicate whether you’d like to pay for your shipping with your PayPal account, or if you’d like the shipping billed to your existing UPS account.
Fill in the information and click Continue.

You’ll see a confirmation page.
If the information is correct, click Continue.

If any information is wrong, click Edit and make your corrections.
If the shipping agreement appears, read it and, if you agree, click I Agree.

Now you’re ready to print a label.
Fill out the requested information.
Print the sample label.

By printing a sample label, you make sure that your printer is working properly.
Print the label by clicking Print Label.

When your label has printed, you may elect to go back to your PayPal Overview page to track the package by clicking Check Shipment, as shown here.

Your PayPal Overview page after shipping.

The items you’ve selected to ship will include a Check Shipment link, and the charges for your shipment will appear on your history log. You may click the Check Shipment button at any time after you’ve shipped your item to track the package’s progress and confirm delivery.