Has anyone used Paypal instead of SASE or SASBE? In my opinion, doing so would save at least the initial $0.49 to send a letter with SASE/BE inside.
Paypal
I think it's a great idea, too, but then the person giving the seeds away would have to go to the store to buy all the bubble mailers, have to go to the post office for stamps (when before they could just throw them in their mail box), and some people who send money via Paypal would use a credit card which would incur a 30 and some cent fee. I think sending SASE/BE is less headache for the good people who are offering their seeds for free.
There have been some people offering seeds who do take postage costs through Paypal. I know there have been several times over the years I have done that. It never hurts to ask, I just make sure I allow extra to cover the cost of any fees they may incur, or to pay for a bubble envelope if they don't have one they can reuse. I wouldn't do it as a way to save a stamp, because I would send more than 49 cents extra through Paypal. I use it more because I can do it right away while I'm still sitting at the computer.
Deb
Just a reminder....the bubble envelope postage just went up. It is no longer 49 cents.
This message was edited May 28, 2010 4:45 PM
It now costs 52 cents for one ounce. They went up 3 cents. You can always go to the USPS.com site and "calculate postage" for whatever ounces you're expecting the envy to weigh and they'll tell you the postage.
I use paypal frequently. There are two kinds of paypal accounts. The personal account is absolutely free BUT it only accepts transfers from one paypal account to another. It won't take debit or credit cards.
The business account WILL accept cards, but there is always a fee for any payment received in a business acct, whether the payment is a paypal transfer or debit and credit cards. The fee is 30 cents for the transaction plus about 3% of the total sent. So if you sent someone $5, the fee would be about .30 + .15.
A lot of us use paypal more for shipping plants for SASE. It really does save you the hassle of having to mail a payment. And it saves the sender the hassle of having to wait for it. Often people who say they will send an SASE end up "forgetting". And that's frustrating for the people who are sending the free plants or seeds. If Paypal is used, your money is here immediately and I can ship your plants the next day.
The only negative I see to using Paypal for this purpose is that Paypal charges the recipient of the money a small fee. If someone is giving away the seeds for a SASBE, then they incur those charges as well as the cost of the envelopes.