Flat rate is a ripoff for most items... use Ground Advantage, has the same insurance coverage as priority and flat rate but is a lot less for small to medium and lighter weight, flat rate is good for things that fit the box but are very heavy that would normally increase cost for standard priority mail, they allow up to something like 70lbs for medium or large flat rate which can be a savings... but for the same size item that weighs less like 5,8,10lbs, its far cheaper to use ground advantage.
Places like pirate ship are great but usually have a membership or sign up fee... if you have paypal which most online sellers do, they have a similar dicounted 3rd party shipping service, used to be ship station i think now different name, but it gives the same or similar discounts as ebay or pirate ship for free and covers all the big shippers like UPS & Fedex.
I use USPS ground advantage all the time selling online and ebay and a decent volume for many years, rarely if ever have any problems with them or other shippers if the item is packed securely. Im sure problems can & do happen with any shipper, but 99% of the time I never have issues as a buyer or seller using USPS.
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