So You Want To Sell Books Online?

Why don't Americans understand how the postal service works?

COVID has sent many booksellers scurrying to figure out how to ship books ordered online to their customers. Over on Twitter I’ve watched them get up to speed quickly, and also heard them vent frustrations with the process, how hard it is, how detailed the work, how upset the customers can get. And once again I appreciate how good Bill Rickman, who handles Belt’s shipping and handling, is at his job.

First, some basics that might help a bookseller or two out. This is our current set-up, and it works well:

-Our online store is through Shopify, which helps organize orders on the backend.
-We use Endicia for postage; we signed up with them when we were a tiny infant baby press, and remain loyal.
-We use a DYMO label printer. Ditto above.
-We order mailing envelopes from ULINE. I am not loyal to ULINE, because they have questionable politics. They are cheap and insanely fast, though, and they have us in the snares of that capitalist scourge, path dependency. My to do list usually contains “…