The Benefits of
Online Postage Services

By Joe Waynick

If you sell over 40 books per month, then you should subscribe to an online postage account and buy USPS postage online.

Few things are more frustrating than having to waste time standing in line at the post office two or three times per week to buy stamps, send Priority Mail, or to purchase insurance when shipping valuable books.

But standing in line is nearly impossible to avoid until you automate your packing and shipping operation and buy US postage on the Internet.

Having an online postage account will save you time, money, and aggravation by avoiding the hassle of having to schlep to the post office several times per week.

Save Time When You Automate Shipping Functions

When your business is small, preparing shipping labels manually is no big deal. You're only processing a couple of orders per day, several days a week.

But as your business grows and you're packing and shipping three or four books per day five or more days per week, the time spent standing in line at the post office becomes a significant profit killer.

After all, time is money and you don't want to find yourself working for pennies. Instead, do something profitable with your time instead of standing in lines or being subjected to unannounced post office closings.

If you look around you'll find profitable home based businesses that sell books on the Internet buy US postage online to save time and increase productivity.

Automated postage services eliminate the need to buy stamps, fill out delivery confirmation forms and customs forms, or having to have your packages "round dated" at the counter.

Round dating is the round date/time stamp post office personnel use to manually postmark letters and international packages. Delivery confirmation is a service offered by the post office to certify that a package has been delivered to a specific address.

Save Money Through Automation

In my book Internet Bookselling Made Easy! I recommend that booksellers use delivery confirmation on all packages sent to customers.

If you buy delivery confirmation directly from the post office you'll pay $0.60 or more per package.

However, if you specify delivery confirmation when you buy postage online the price drops to $0.22 or less. Therefore, you save $0.38 to $0.40 with online postage..

If you're shipping 40+ packages per month the delivery confirmation savings alone pays for the cost of your monthly subscription.

Furthermore, you save time, and saving time saves money. If you pay yourself a mere $15.00 per hour you'll save $30.00 to $60.00 per week by avoiding the post office.

Automate To Improve Customer Satisfaction

One big reason to subscribe to an online postage system is to use "stealth postage." The stealth postage feature prevents the actual amount you pay for postage being printed on the shipping label.

Instead, the actual shipping cost is embedded in a bar code that prints on the label.

The reason this feature is important is because customers are charged a flat fee for shipping at the time an order is placed. Yet most, if not all, marketplaces take a cut of the shipping fee, leaving you a reduced amount.

Over the years I've gotten a fair number of angry eMails from customers complaining because they were charged a $3.99 shipping fee but the postage amount printed on the label reads $2.75.

Customers simply are not aware that sellers only receive $2.64 out of the $3.99 and that you actually lose money on postage in many cases.

For example, if a customer is charged a $3.99 shipping, the marketplace takes $1.35, leaving you with $2.64 to pay for postage and other order fulfillment costs. Depending on where the customer lives, that amount may or may not cover the entire postage expense. If it doesn't then you have to make up the difference out of your pocket.

You can save yourself those kinds of headaches by using the stealth feature and avoid printing online postage amounts on shipping labels. Most profitable home based Internet booksellers use stealth postage.

How To Buy Postage Online

I use Endicia Dazzle for my online postage system. Dazzle is one of the most popular automated postage systems used by Internet booksellers.

It's a full-featured automated postage system that offers an inexpensive premium plan that provides:

• The ability to print online postage,.
• Access discounted Priority Mail.
• Receive discounted insurance for expensive items.
• Get free delivery confirmation for Priority Mail.
• Enjoy discounted confirmation for all other classes of mail.
• Get online address verification.
• Print First Class postage for business correspondence.
• Program XML integration (web programming).
• Online package look-up.
• Stealth postage.
• Return shipping labels for customers want to return a purchase.
• Perform automatic printing of pre-filled customs forms for international shipments.

There are no risk-free easy ways of making money. That is unless you count the fact that Dazzle will pay for itself in no time at all. Then it's all money in the bank from there.

If you want a truly professional online postage system that's available whenever you need it, 24/7 and 365 days a week, then Endicia Dazzle is right for you. It's worked for me for over six years and I couldn't operate my business without it.

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