How to Ship with Depop Using Pirate Ship for Cheaper Rates

How to Ship with Depop Using Pirate Ship for Cheaper Rates

For any Depop seller, mastering the art of shipping is a critical step toward maximizing profits and ensuring customer satisfaction. While Depop offers its own shipping solution, savvy sellers know that there are often more cost-effective ways to get products to buyers. The right shipping strategy can significantly impact your bottom line, especially as your business grows.

Many sellers find themselves asking: how can I lower my shipping costs without sacrificing reliability? The answer often lies in looking beyond the default options and taking control of the process yourself. This is where using Pirate Ship for Depop orders comes into play.

This comprehensive guide will walk you through everything you need to know about how to ship with Depop using Pirate Ship. We'll compare Depop’s built-in shipping with self-shipping, explore the powerful benefits of Pirate Ship, and show you how to integrate it into your workflow. We will also explore how automating other parts of your business can free up time to focus on scaling your shop on Depop, Poshmark, eBay, and more.

Depop Shipping Explained: Your Two Main Options

When you make a sale on Depop, you have two primary methods for getting the item to your customer: using Depop’s prepaid labels or handling the shipping yourself. Each path has distinct advantages and disadvantages, and the best choice depends on your business goals, sales volume, and how much control you want over the process.

Option 1: Ship with Depop (The Convenient Choice)

Depop’s built-in shipping option is designed for simplicity and convenience. When you make a sale and have chosen this method, Depop emails you a prepaid USPS shipping label. For sellers who prefer not to print, Depop also provides a QR code on the order screen that can be scanned at the post office.

This method simplifies the process significantly. The labels include tracking, which is automatically uploaded to the order, and sellers often receive Depop Protection. To use it, you must enter the item’s approximate weight, including packaging, to select the correct shipping tier.

However, this convenience comes with limitations. You are restricted to using USPS, and the rates may not always be the most competitive. Furthermore, Depop shipping is not available for items weighing over 10 lbs or for any international orders. To participate in Depop's popular free shipping promotions, you must use their labels.

Option 2: Self-Shipping (The Flexible, Cost-Saving Choice)

Self-shipping, also known as shipping on your own, gives you complete control over your shipping process. You choose the carrier, the service level, and the price. This flexibility is the primary reason many top sellers opt for this method.

It allows you to compare rates from carriers like USPS, UPS, and FedEx to find the most cost-effective option for each specific package. This is especially crucial for international shipping, as Depop does not provide labels for global sales, forcing all international sellers to use the self-ship option.

The trade-off for this control and potential cost savings is that it requires more time and effort. You are responsible for purchasing postage, adding insurance, and manually entering the tracking information into the Depop order. If there are issues with delivery, you must handle the disputes yourself, as you might not qualify for the same seller protection offered with Depop labels.

Depop Shipping vs. Self-Shipping: A Head-to-Head Comparison

Choosing between these two options can be tough. To make it clearer, let's break down the pros and cons of each method in a direct comparison.

Why Savvy Sellers Use Pirate Ship for Depop Self-Shipping

After reviewing the options, it’s clear that self-shipping offers a powerful opportunity to save money, particularly for sellers who are willing to put in a little extra effort. To streamline the self-shipping process and guarantee the best prices, the article reviewed recommends using Pirate Ship.

Pirate Ship is a shipping service that helps you find the lowest rates across multiple carriers, making it an indispensable tool for Depop sellers who ship on their own.

Finding the Absolute Best Rates

The primary benefit of using Pirate Ship for Depop is cost savings. Pirate Ship compares rates from different carriers to provide you with the best possible price for your package. Instead of being locked into Depop's tiered USPS rates, you can see if UPS or another service offers a better deal for your package's specific weight and destination.

For Depop sellers who prefer self-shipping, services like Pirate Ship are the key to finding the lowest rates and protecting your profit margins on every sale.

Unlocking Affordable International Shipping

International shipping is a huge growth opportunity, but the cost and complexity can be intimidating. Since Depop doesn’t offer international shipping labels, sellers must use the self-ship option. This is where Pirate Ship truly shines for Depop sellers.

Pirate Ship's Simple Export feature offers what the article calls the most affordable rates for international orders. It simplifies customs requirements, making the process far less daunting. In fact, if you're unsure what to charge for international shipping on a Depop listing, you can use the rates from Pirate Ship Simple Export as a reliable guide to stay competitive.

Gaining Control and Peace of Mind with Insurance

When you ship on your own, you are responsible for the package until it reaches the buyer. If a parcel is lost or damaged, the responsibility falls on you. This is why adding insurance is so important.

Pirate Ship allows you to easily add insurance to your parcels, giving you and your buyer peace of mind. This is a critical feature that protects your business from potential losses, a safeguard you have to manage yourself when you opt out of Depop's labels.

How to Ship with Depop Using Pirate Ship: A Step-by-Step Guide

Ready to start saving money? Using Pirate Ship for your Depop orders is straightforward. Here’s a simple workflow you can follow.

1. Set Your Depop Listings to Self-Ship: When creating or editing a listing on Depop, scroll down to the shipping section. Choose "Ship on your own" or "My own shipping." You will need to set a shipping price. You can use Pirate Ship's calculator to estimate this cost beforehand to ensure you're charging the right amount. For international, use the Simple Export rate as your guide.
2. Get Your Buyer's Address: Once your item sells, go to your sold items in Depop to find the buyer's shipping address. You will need to copy and paste this into Pirate Ship.
3. Enter Package Details in Pirate Ship: On the Pirate Ship website, enter the buyer's address and the package details (weight and dimensions). This is why having a small shipping scale is essential for any serious reseller.
4. Compare Rates and Choose Your Service: Pirate Ship will automatically compare rates across carriers like USPS and UPS. You can see all the options and their costs. Select the one that best fits your needs, whether it's the cheapest, the fastest, or a specific carrier.
5. Purchase and Print Your Label: After selecting your service and adding any extra insurance, purchase the label. You can then print it out, attach it to your package, and drop it off with the designated carrier.
6. Add Tracking to Depop: This is a crucial final step. Copy the tracking number from the label you purchased on Pirate Ship. Go back to the order details screen in Depop and manually enter the tracking number. This notifies the buyer that their item is on its way and is required to finalize the sale.

The Hidden Cost of Self-Shipping: Time and How to Get It Back

While using Pirate Ship for Depop can save you a significant amount of money, the main drawback of self-shipping remains: it takes more time and effort. Weighing packages, copying addresses, purchasing labels, and updating tracking numbers for every single order adds up. As your business grows, this administrative work can become a major bottleneck, stealing time you could be using to source new inventory, create listings, or engage with customers.

This is a common challenge for growing resellers. You start saving money in one area (shipping) only to lose a more valuable resource: your time. How do you reclaim those hours while still benefiting from cheaper shipping rates?

The solution is to implement systems and tools that automate other repetitive aspects of your business. By streamlining tasks like listing creation, inventory management, and cross-listing, you can easily absorb the extra time spent on self-shipping and focus on activities that generate revenue. This is precisely what our platform is designed to do.

If you're ready to not only save money on shipping but also save hours every week, consider starting a free trial of Reeva to see how automation can transform your workflow.

Scale Your Depop Business and Beyond with Reeva

Reeva is an all-in-one platform built to help resale businesses simplify selling, automate tasks, and grow. While you’re saving money using Pirate Ship, our tools give you back the time needed to scale your operations on Depop, Poshmark, eBay, Mercari, and more.

We are trusted by top resale businesses across the U.S. who have used our platform to accelerate their growth and achieve incredible results. For example, Nuzzydeals saw a 7x increase in sales, while Vintage Vault increased their items sold by 372% in just three weeks.

Sell Smarter and Faster, Not Harder

Our platform is designed to optimize your selling process. You can turn photos into complete listings instantly. Just upload your photos, and we will create listings with titles, descriptions, and prices.

You can then list your items everywhere with one click, publishing to all your marketplaces without juggling multiple tabs. With multi-store support, you can maximize your sales by reaching more buyers effortlessly across all your stores.

As our user FabFam from Washington says, "Reeva has cut my listing time by more than half. I can take photos, voice-to-text my details, and let Reeva handle the rest."

Save Time with Powerful Automation

Imagine getting time back every single day. We make it possible by automating the most tedious tasks. Our platform can automatically share your products on Poshmark to boost visibility, send personalized offers to buyers without you lifting a finger, and relist stale products to keep them at the top of search results.

Crucially, our system will instantly delist sold items across all platforms to prevent overselling. This feature is a game-changer for multi-platform sellers. In the words of AlistairBP, a reseller from Georgia, "The feature I use 100% the most—and couldn't live without—is the AUTO-DELIST feature."

Are you spending too much time on manual tasks? See how our automation tools can give you that time back by starting a free trial today.

Grow Your Business with Ease

Scaling a business requires more than just listing and selling. Our management tools are built to help you grow with ease. You can update and manage hundreds of listings in bulk, track sales and profits with powerful business analytics, and even give team members access with multi-user account options.

This level of control allows you to work on your business, not just in it. TUFFNY, a user from New York, explains the impact: "I've cut down my admin time by at least 30%, which has allowed me to source more products and expand my offerings."

Full Service Accounting

Tired of spreadsheets? We've got you covered there, too. Our platform includes full-service accounting tools designed for resellers. You can connect your bank accounts to automatically record transactions, expenses, and fees.

Simply upload a photo to attach receipts for seamless record-keeping and audit protection. Our system categorizes your income and expenses so you can easily file taxes and generate clear profit and loss reports to make smarter business decisions. As user PCT Vintage Finds put it, "No more spreadsheets. My bookkeeping is now all automated thanks to Reeva accounting."

Conclusion: Streamline Your Shipping and Scale Your Business

For Depop sellers, making smart shipping choices is fundamental to running a profitable business. While Depop’s prepaid labels offer convenience, they can be restrictive and more expensive. By choosing to self-ship, you gain the flexibility to find better rates and the ability to ship internationally.

Using a service like Pirate Ship is the best way to manage self-shipping on Depop. It empowers you to compare carriers, secure the lowest possible rates, purchase insurance, and handle international orders with its affordable Simple Export feature. This strategy puts more money back into your pocket with every sale.

However, saving money on shipping is only one piece of the puzzle. To truly grow your resale business, you need to save time as well. The time you spend on manual shipping tasks, listing, and inventory management is time you're not spending on sourcing and selling.

That's where we come in. Our platform automates the repetitive tasks that slow you down, from creating AI-powered listings in seconds to delisting sold items across marketplaces automatically. With Reeva, you can run your business from anywhere, save over 30% of your admin time, and join resellers who are seeing their sales increase by 4x, 7x, or even more.

Ready to streamline your entire resale business and accelerate your growth? Start your free trial of Reeva today and see how easy it can be to run and grow your business.