Whatnot Plant Shipping Guide Whatnot Plant Shipping Guide
  1. Whatnot
  2. For Sellers
  3. Shipping

Whatnot Plant Shipping Guide

Whatnot Support Whatnot Support

Introduction: How does shipping work on Whatnot?

  1. You list the item with a weight (include packaging weight).
  2. Once the item is purchased, we use the assigned weight to determine the cost to ship the item to the buyer based on their location (costs here).
  3. After your show or once an item has sold from our Marketplace, you can access your orders on our website and generate a label (must be created on our site through our system) for each order. 
    1. Attach your labels to each package and take them to the post office (step by step guides linked in the “Resources” section below).
  4. The status of each order will automatically update as we receive tracking updates through the carrier, which can be tracked on your seller dashboard at whatnot.com
  5. Our standard shipping options are: (a) USPS Ground Advantage for all packages < 1 lb and over. 5 lbs and (b) USPS Priority for all packages between 1-5 lbs. You have the option to select Flat Rate shipping, which has a set cost of $8.35 up to 70 lbs so long as the items fit in flat rate packaging. Please note that anything under 1 lb will automatically generate a USPS Ground Advantage label.
  6. If you wish to use UPS or any other carrier outside of USPS, please fill out this form to request approval for our Bring Your Own Label program.
  7. Until you process 1,000 orders or reach $100,000 in sales (as well as meeting a few other requirements), you will be paid on an item-by-item basis once each order is delivered.

    Step-by-step Plants shipping guide


    1. Part 1: Before you go live
      1. Schedule your Whatnot show
      2. Upload your listings
        1. To bulk upload a list of unique inventory and create many listings at once, you can use the spreadsheet CSV upload tool 
      3. How to pack & ship
        1. Prepare the plants for shipping
          1. Make sure the plants are watered appropriately
          2. Prune the plants as needed
          3. Choose proper pots for shipment
        2. Pack & wrap the plants in the right materials
          1. Suggested plant shipping materials:
            1. Sturdy shipping boxes
            2. Plastic bags and ties
            3. Bubble wrap or air-filled bags
            4. Packing paper
            5. Lightweight or plastic pots (if you’re shipping potted plants)
            6. Heat / cool packs & insulation, weather dependent
            7. USPS free shipping supplies
          2. Securely package the plant
    2. Part 2: Printer settings
      1. Ensure your shipping label settings are correct before generating labels. You can update your printer settings from your account settings on whatnot.com. Please choose between 8.5” x 11” (default) or 4”x6” label (thermal).
        1. Please note: you cannot update the format for labels that have already been generated. Otherwise, please contact Whatnot support.


    1. Part 3: Shipping options
      1. To ship USPS Priority, update your shipping settings to be USPS Priority Mail for all packages over 5 lbs.
        1. On your mobile app, select Seller Profile > Seller Hub > Shipping > Domestic Shipments.
      2. If the item is <1lb, set the weight of the item to 1lb, which will automatically change the shipping option to USPS Priority. 
      3. You can also opt to select Ground Advantage (which is usually cheaper for buyers) for packages over 5 lbs, or leverage Flat Rate shipping which has a set cost of $8.35 up to 70 lbs so long as the items fit in flat-rate packaging.
      4. If you wish to use UPS or any other shipping carrier, please fill out this form to request approval for our Bring Your Own Label program.
      5. For more information on how to offer free or reduced shipping, see here.
    2. Part 4: Setting Shipping Profiles
      1. If you have common shipping weight and size dimensions for your orders, we recommend setting up Custom Shipping Profiles with a Max Bundle Size. This will allow you to set the maximum number of items that go in a package, along with the weight and dimensions of the package. You can reuse this shipping profile for multiple orders, preventing the need to adjust the weight/size every time you upload a new item. 
      2. Custom shipping profiles ensure that your items will be processed correctly by the shipping carrier and not rejected, returned to sender, or incur excess postage fees upon delivery to your buyer.
      3. For example, if you would like to ship with USPS Priority and include a maximum of 3 plants in one shipment, you can set a custom shipping profile for a 1 lb item with a max bundle size of 3. This will ensure that your items using this shipping profile will only bundle up to 3 items, and any additional items will be packaged into a new shipment. For reference, USPS Priority labels are generated for shipments between 1-5 lbs, unless you also specify USPS Priority for shipments >5 lbs.
    3. Part 5: Bundling orders
      1. If a buyer purchases multiple items during a live show, they may be bundled into a single package automatically by our system to save costs / packaging with a single shipping label according to our Smart Bundling™ Tool  - in most cases this saves both buyers and sellers time and costs by consolidating items. If you use a Custom Shipping Profile with Max Bundle Size, then the system will bundle based on that item’s max bundle size.
      2. To avoid over-bundling a shipment and being charged a shipping overage fee, please see our FAQs below.
    4. Part 6: Before you generate your labels
      1. We encourage you to carefully weigh your items before creating listings to ensure you do not have to cover additional shipping costs. However, if you do need to make adjustments to your shipments, you are allowed 5 free adjustments per week. Note that if a shipping adjustment leads to a lower shipping cost, we will not issue refunds for the difference. 
      2. Making adjustments to your shipments (i.e., changes to weight, dimensions)
    5. Part 7: When to ship your orders
      1. Given the specific considerations when shipping plants, Whatnot allows sellers in the Plant category up to 8 business days (10 total days) to ship their plants.
      2. Please generate & print your labels within 7 calendar days of the sale.
      3. In the case of extreme weather or if the buyer requests that an item ships outside of this period, contact trustandsafety@whatnot.com for a shipping extension.

FAQs

Q: How are shipping costs calculated?

  • By default, our system will assume your packages/bundles fit in a regular sized box where the shipping cost is simply based on the weight.
  • However, if you use a Custom Shipping Profile with Max Bundle Size, and specify a box size over 1 cubic foot, then the price of the package may be based on USPS’s dimensional weight cost.
  • For example, if you create a Max Bundle Size of 1 with dimensions 16 x 16 x 16 inches, then the shipping price of that item may be based on dimensional weight.

Q: How do you add on a cold or heat pack without generating a second shipping label or going over the weight limit? 

  • We recommend adding the weight of the cold or heat pack into the weight of your plant and increasing the starting price to avoid any shipping overage fees.
  • If you do not want to include the cost of the cold or heat pack into your shipping cost, we recommend adding it as a Buy It Now listing & encouraging buyers to purchase it when they make an order, or explicitly share the risk of not including a heat/cold pack in their shipment.

Q: My stream just ended. When do I need to ship my orders?

  • Given the specific considerations when shipping plants, Whatnot allows sellers in the plant category up to 8 business days (10 full days) to ship their plants. Please generate and print your labels within 7 calendar days.
  • In the case of extreme weather or if the buyer requests that an item be shipped outside of this period, contact trustandsafety@whatnot.com for a shipping extension. 

Q: What happens if I list an item with an incorrect weight? Will I be charged the difference as a seller?

  • You may be subject to pay the difference in what we charge the buyer compared to the actual cost - to avoid this, list items with their correct weight.
  • When adjusting packages / shipping after your show, some adjustments are always free, others are free until you hit your adjustment allowance, and others will always cause you to pay the difference - see the specifics here.

Q: I’m on the BYOL pilot. How do I get reimbursed?

  • Buyers are charged the standard shipping cost rates. If you use BYOL, we will add this charge to your ledger. If the cost you pay for a label off Whatnot is greater than what we charge, you are responsible for the overage, and Whatnot will not reimburse you. Read here for more info on BYOL policy.
  • To avoid large overages, you can set your plant weights to a weight that would equal the fees of a UPS label. 

For example, set a weight of 18 lbs to charge a minimum $15 for shipping. 

USPS Pricing Chart

Q: How do I avoid over bundling?

  1. We encourage you to carefully weigh your items and create custom shipping profiles before listing to avoid over bundling.
    1. Please note that if you list items as 1 lb (in order to generate USPS Priority labels, even if the item weighs <1 lb) and would like to pack more items into one shipment after purchase (where the total recorded weight is >5 lbs, even if the actual weight is <5 lbs), this could incur a shipping overage cost.
  2. List large, fragile, or unwieldy items with a custom shipping profile with a bundle quantity of 1
    • For specialty / extremely rare plants, create a custom shipping profile and assign the max bundle quantity as 1 – this will ensure that our system does not bundle them and knows to account for the dimensional weight costs of items > 1 cubic foot in volume. After creating a few of these, you’ll find that you’ll likely be able to reuse these profiles for items of similar size / weight in the future
  3. When possible, select inventory for a given show that could bundle well:
    • It may help to sell items of similar size / weight in the same show, and save other / differently sized inventory for a different show. If you sell only small items in a show, then you likely won’t run into bundling / shipping weight issues. For example, if you are selling all small succulents, you can easily create a single custom shipping profile based on the box or packing slip you’ll use. You can specify the bundle quantity of exactly how many succulents can fit into each box and create one bulk listing for all of them in less than a minute. Our system will then know not to over bundle items beyond the limit you set. 
  4. Try a Flat Rate Lot Show using custom shipping profiles:
    • When creating a custom shipping profile, you can select a flat rate box as the dimensions and assign it a max bundle quantity of 1. This tells our system that any listing assigned this profile should not be bundled (consider making a profile for each of the flat rate box sizes – these are reusable profiles, so you would only need to create it once)
    • In your show, you can pick out one or a few items that fit perfectly into a flat rate box and create / select a listing with the matching custom shipping profile that has been assigned the flat rate box they fit in. Based on the shipping profile you set previously, our system will know the item / items are a stand alone package.

Q: What are common shipping mistakes for plant sellers?

  • Users list items with incorrect weights and then end up having to pay the difference in what Whatnot charges the buyers based on what the seller listed the item as compared to what the shipping cost actually was.
    • Fix: List items with the correct weight.
  • A user doesn’t use custom shipping profiles for large or fragile items and our system ends up bundling too many items that the seller needs to unbundle - which may cost the seller if they need to make a non-free adjustment.
    • Note: occasionally, this isn’t an actual issue as the combined weight of the bundle that the buyer was charged for is the same cost as the separate bundles or one oversized box.
    • Fix: Use custom shipping profiles for larger or fragile items that if bundled with a few other items may exceed a cubic foot in size.

Resources:

Was this article helpful?

10 out of 18 found this helpful

Articles in this section