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Endicia: Your Home Post Office
by Yisroel Goodman

One of the biggest hassles about running an Internet business is shipping. Years ago I had UPS coming to my office every day for pickups. I paid about $7 a week for this service. But the price kept going up and the quality of UPS service kept going down. I switched to USPS and discovered that our much-maligned Post Office is one of the best shipping deals around. I ship smaller items such as ink cartridges. Most of my packages weigh a pound or two. For 4.80 to 9.85 I can get them anywhere in the country in about three days, via priority mail. They even deliver Saturday. I get delivery confirmation which is trackable online. I can prove to my customer that the item went out. I can log on to the usps website and verify that it was delivered. Over the past three years, I have sent out thousands of packages, via USPS. Some were even sent (at the customer's request) parcel post with no delivery confirmation or insurance. Very few packages were lost or damaged. That's an incredible record and far better than the service I ever got from UPS, even back when they were more reliable. But I paid a price for this reliability and that is the need to run to the Post Office at least twice a week to get my packages out. But now all that has changed. I have turned my home office into my own personal post office.

Programs that let you print postage from your PC have been around for a while and I have tried several of them, USPS click and ship, Shipping Assistant, Stamps.com, and Endicia. I wrote an article comparing these for auctionbytes.com. In a nutshell, if you send out less than 10 packages a month, click and ship is all you need. It's free and available at the post office website USPS.Com. If you send out more than that, the time you save and the convenience make Endicia my first choice.

Both Stamps.com and Endicia let you print many forms of postage directly from your PC. But I find that Endicia's 9.95 monthly package ($100 a year) is even better than stamps.com's $15.99 monthly package, so I will compare those two. (Endicia's 15.95 monthly package is far superior.) Both offer FREE delivery confirmation. Many folks are not aware that electronic delivery confirmation (as opposed to the stickers you buy at the Post Office) are free for priority mail and only 18 cents for first class and media mail (book rate). There is also a shipping discount for printing your postage online. While both programs let you track the delivery status, with Stamps.com you have to click the link on every package to see it. Endicia gives it to you right on the report, so you see every package you sent and when it was delivered. Both let you import data from other databases, but Endicia even hooks into over 40 auction management packages so your package gets sent right from within your auction application. You can even write your own custom hook into Endicia. Endicia even lets you create postage for foreign shipments, print customs forms, and steps you through the entire process. Both let you create custom labels, but Endicia's software is friendlier and comes with many templates. Stamps.com gives you a free scale and $25 worth of postage when you register. But since you are paying $6 a month more, eventually you are paying for these "free" gifts.

You can get free package pickup from the post office for priority and express mail. I requested it online on Sunday, my packages were picked up Monday and delivered to two out-of-state customers in different neighboring states on Tuesday. This exceeded my (and my customers') expectations.

If you ship regularly, what is the value of a few hours of your time? Surely more than the 9.95 monthly fee that Endicia charges, or 99.95 if you pay annually (and that's before the online postage discount). But don't just take my word for it - try them free for one month. All you pay for is the postage. The delivery confirmation is free. It only took a few days to convince me.

Another question that came up on the boards was, will Paypal and other services accept these as proof of shipping? According to statistics I have seen quoted by USPS employees, 98% of delivery confirmation labels are scanned at least once and my experience shows this to be the case. Endicia labels are no exception. If you are unlucky enough that your package never gets scanned and your customer claims it didn't arrive then you will have a problem, since you have no postal receipt showing shipment. But my own experience shows that this is a very small probability. When I shipped something expensive, like a digital camera, I took it to the Post Office and paid for at least $100 of insurance coverage and signature delivery.

Once you sign up, you can refer others to the service and get a free month for everyone who registers through your referral. Right now if you do want to give them a try, please use this link.