Ebay: How to Pack N' Ship This Mamoth Structure

Easily store the house in a 44 gallon christmas tree tote box, its roughly the same dimension as the factory box, and keeps out humidity and bugs. 

(top 3 photos-how I get them. bottom phot0- how I send it out)

Unless you have a UPS business account and get a hefty discount, I have found USPS parcel post with added size surcharge (boxes over 84" net size), insurance and tracking to be the most cost effective. The final weight of the box will be a hair under 30 pounds, so round up to 30 so it doesn't get sent back for 50 cents worth of underpaid postage. I live in California and shipped one to Indiana recently and it was $33 plus $2 for insurance. Though one just went to a town 1.5 hours away for $15 since it didn't have to get on a plane. Its the plane ticket that runs it up to $63 per shipment. Thats another reason why you want to use a large moving box and extra bubble wrap you have laying around rather than buy it all so it wont cut into your profit. This is actually an important topic since damage can occur if done improperly, not ot mention negative feedback on ebay seller accounts. What I receive is in stark contrast to what I send out. I get garbagey boxes re-used and taped together, with newspaper (if they used any packing material at all) and parts falling out of it as the postman hands it to me. All you can do is dump it all on the floor and seperate the garbage from the product. When I am done my hands are black from the newspaper or walmart bag ink. Usually the post covers are shattered from the sellers negligence. You also have to pick through all the crumpled up newspaper and bags since one tiny screw or flower may have gotten in there. I still cant believe sellers actually do this, its so offensive. I always use a nice, new large moving box (approximately the size of the orginal toy box) and do my best to re-create how Mattel packed them in '78. The main difference is that I use bubble wrap instead of cardboard partitions. I wrap all the smaller items in plastic baggies and tape them to secure it all, finally adding a thank you note and small bonus item they were not expecting like clothes hangers (since my buyer pays top dollar) before sealing all the sides with high quality string paper tape that you have to wet to adhere. The paypal shipping label adds that professional touch as well. Overall, out of 5 houses I bought in 16 months, only two were properly packed.

Another junky, partially open box packed with dirty newspaper used to ship my doll house!