Virtual mailboxes make managing your regular mail easier, especially if you're someone who travels often or runs a remote business. When you use a virtual mailbox, a provider receives your mail and scans the contents so that all your important documents become text-searchable PDFs you can search through as easily as email.
Most people receive more than just letters in the mail. Especially when holiday online shopping gets into full swing, many of us receive regular package shipments. Virtual mailboxes can also manage these shipments, store them, and get them to you wherever you are in the world.
Can virtual mailboxes receive packages from anyone?
Your virtual mailbox can receive most of the same packages any other address could. Here's how we break it down at Earth Class Mail.
If you use a virtual mailbox that uses a virtual P.O. Box address, it can only receive U.S. Postal Service (USPS) packages, which is also how traditional P.O. Boxes you rent from the post office operate. Your virtual mailbox can accept other shipments if it uses one of our real street addresses.
Most of our other addresses accept shipments from a variety of carriers besides the postal service, including FedEx, UPS, and DHL. To see which addresses accept packages from which carriers, look up the address you use here to see which carriers it accepts.
What to do when you receive a package at your virtual mailbox
Depending on your situation, you may want packages shipped directly to your physical location, not your virtual address. For example, suppose you run a remote business and use your virtual mailbox to register your business. In that case, you may still want business supplies sent to your home even if you don't want your home address listed as the public address for your business.
Some of our customers use a virtual mailbox when living abroad or traveling indefinitely, making it easier to have packages shipped first to their virtual mailbox. When you receive a package at your virtual address with Earth Class Mail, you have 10 days of free storage included in your account.
If you take more than 10 days to decide what to do with your package, you will incur monthly storage fees based on the package weight.
Shipping options for virtual mailboxes
When you receive your package, you can log into your Earth Class Mail account and check your mail from anywhere. Then, you can order the package forwarded wherever you want it. Each time you ship something, you can decide:
- Where you want it shipped
- If you want shipping insurance
- If you want a signature upon delivery
- Your choice of shipping services: USPS, FedEx, or UPS
- The shipment speed, such as priority mail express or standard delivery
- If you want to combine your item with other items into a single shipment
How much does shipping cost?
Shipping costs are calculated based on current shipping rates from your address to the location you want it shipped to, as well as the method of shipment and your speed of delivery. The cost is automatically calculated within your Earth Class Mail account, and you can modify your choices based on what you need and how much you want to pay.
Types of packages virtual mailboxes don't accept
When you sign up for a virtual mailbox, you also sign a user agreement and acceptable use policy that details some prohibited items. The most common things we emphasize we don't accept include:
- Illegal drugs, marijuana, and alcohol
- Live animals and items such as ivory, shark fins, and rhino horns that are derived from protected animal species
- Anything requiring refrigeration
- Human remains
- Perishable items such as fresh fruit
- Ammunition, fireworks, airbags, and other things that are designed to explode or start a fire
- Lithium-ion batteries not contained in the product
- Liquids that are leaking
- Items marked as "hazmat" (hazardous material)
