@Ray Copeland Hello and Welcome

@Doug Brandies It really does make it worth it to look at every way possible when you ship. I have had a few shipments recently that I would have lost $1 or more on shipping, but I switched many of these over to Flat Rate Envelope, or Legal size flat rate, then they only cost me $8.15, and $8.45, I ended up making money, and provided priority shipping that way. You might want to look at a couple of my newer post and responses where I talk about how I am doing a trial on going to a flat rate shipping again, with some changes to how I use to do it.

Awesome, what a great accomplishment.

@Mandy Lewis Yes keep climbing.

I wonder how half the shirts look upon delivery once shipped through the USPS system?

@Joann Defelici @Jerry Wilson I hope everyone understands what we talk about when we say flat rate shipping. It is not the same thing as USPS Priority Mail Flat Rate Boxes, or Envelopes. Those are not usually a good way to ship items, although sometimes they work. When we are talking about flat rate shipping, it is us deciding how much we are going to charge a buyer no matter where they live. What we actually pay to ship the item will depend on how we chose to ship it, and where it is being shipped to. So I might sell a pair of jeans and charge $8.99 Flat Rate to the buyer, but if it ships to somewhere near by, I might only pay $6.00 to ship it. If it goes to the west coast, I might have to pay $9.00 to ship it. If you don't follow what I am saying on here, please ask, because this is very important for everyone to understand.

@Jerry Wilson I have been doing the research, and that is what has me starting to looking at doing some trials back to calculated shipping, but with changes. I use to have all my calculated shipping set up so that the buyer just seen the regular commercial rate, and I agree that flat rate shipping beats these rates hands down. As I started to look at where most of my items were being sent to under my flat rate shipping, I started noticing that a large maority are going to the West, and East coast, because they are getting the better bargain. The bad part is that most of the coastal areas are also the higher cost of living areas. So it looks to me like my flat rate is keeping me from getting the more profitable sales, the ones closer to me. This is why I am trying some sample listings with the calculated shipping, although this time I am giving them my discounted rate with $1.00 added on. Yes, I miss out on some of those big shipping profits, but now I am guaranteeing myself that I will have the $1 profit on every shipment, my pricing can be more competitive, and it will be competitive in all areas of the US, not just a good deal for those living on the coast. And I do believe that giving this reasonable shipping to everyone will open my market up to more people. If you think about it this way, if I have a pair of jeans that sells to my neighboring state, it might cost me $6.25 to ship it, so the buyer pays $7.25. My old flat rate would cost them $8.99. Makes my item more competitive to more people. Even if this same pair of jeans were to sell to the West coast, It would cost me real close to $8.99 to ship them. So now they would pay $9.99. I still make my $1 profit, actually a little more, because I would put these into Flat rate envelope, and ship them for $8.15. Again, this is just something I am trying to a limited sampling to see how it works/