Thinking about shipping

I have been thinking hard about shipping lately. I am just starting on my ball python projects but am very concerned. From the posts I have read many many people ship their snakes in boxes labled "fragel" or such and throu companies that do not take snakes. I read the tread on getting approved and it dosent sound hard. However how long can you keep your certification if you dont used it? I wont ship for at least a year or so. I dont want my snakes to end up in a bad way but however I dont want to spend a lot of money and time to get approved then have to turn around and do it again. Is it really worth it to only mail one or two snakes a year? Like I said I have a year or so to think it over (even I can get my courage up in a year LOL). I have one small boy that I am thinking about selling but dont want to worry about the shipping so he is staying put untill my other project gets off the ground. If this is a repeat post sorry.