Stand In Line No More

By: Brian Sheldon

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Ah… I remember the days of the post office lines all too well. When I first started bookselling I used to do it part time. At that point I was working a full day at another job, which left me time only at night to package the orders and the mornings to get up bright and early before work to wait in line to have them metered and taken. Those were the days, where I would burn precious time, money and gas to get the packages on their way. Now that I look back on it I laugh, about as much as I laugh when I do drop offs sometimes at the sort bins and see the masses of people in line looking at me with such anger that I didn't have to wait in line. I guess you could say it's a marvelous feeling, being independent from the post office in every way that I can, because as many of you know all too well, some post offices and most are extremely political and bureaucratic about their practices. “By the books” doesn't even describe some offices like NYC, and various “black hole” offices in CA. And I don't want to make it sound like the post office is bad because they aren't, and all the agony and rage that some postal workers have is just a reflection of their working conditions and the masses of idiots they have to deal with on a daily basis.

I remember one time I had to wait in line to send some stuff international (before I had gone to Endicia) and I saw a woman bringing a bunch of gifts to the counter. These were fragile gifts and she brings them up to the counter and has a label filled out and asks the clerk to mail it the cheapest method possible as she didn't want to spend a lot of money shipping it. The guy tells her she has to box it; she throws a fit but does it anyways. Little did she know before she threw the fit that USPS boxes are free. Then she screams out, “do you think I should buy bubble wrap” and it just went on and she pretty much harassed the clerk but he kept his cool. Without going into much detail it kind of goes to show what these men and woman have to keep bottled up inside for such a long period of time and most of them work 6 to 7 day weeks with no over time pay. Even though the politics many illustrate seems outrageous, you can only imagine how many people before yourself they dealt with that day and how many of those people that nearly drove them nuts.

Anyhow, I just wanted to clarify before I had a disgruntled USPS employee read this article and put in a request to have all of our business mail slowed, because they are crafty! So yes, USPS does an amazing job and the employees put up a lot of abuse and deal with a lot of incompetent people that should really be going to mail boxes etc. But back to my article, because after all you want to hear about the advantages of avoiding all of this, and how you can maximize efficiency and decrease time spent just getting the package somewhere let alone packaging it.

The greatest move that USPS made in their time was the choice to allow electronic postage. Now it is widely used through PayPal, USPS.com, Stamps and Endicia. Not only does it give them postage and money without much work or effort, but it makes it easier for folks like us to do everything under one roof, as other companies have been doing with UPS and Fedex for years. As a prior long time veteran for Stamps.com I'm not going to completely rule them out but I'm going to use them in my comparison to Endicia. Internet postage for anyone who isn't aware of it is as simple as paying with your credit card and printing it on labels, paper or envelopes. It's an electronic version of going to the post office without actually going to the post office, (if that makes any sense.) And when you want to ship the mail out after it has been metered and labeled, all you have to do is stick it in your mail box, request a free pickup (phone or online) or drop it off at the post office. (For free pickups though please remember you need at least one priority or express package.)

Let's dive right in here with the basics and the run down. Endicia has 3 service plans. Standard, Premium and Professional. Basic is $10 a month, Premium is $16 a month and Professional is $35 a month. Most people in the book business who use Endicia (and most do) use the Premium plan. For only a $6 difference considering you get more than twice as many features, it's worth it. Also, if you plan to integrate it with AOB (Article Link), you will need premium as well. On an average month that is only about 53 cents a day. Now let's do some quick math here. And I'm assuming an average scenario for many sellers that still go the post office. You have to drive to the post office and bearing in mind the high gas prices, depending on how often you mail shipments out, it adds up. If you purchase DC (Delivery Confirmation) on packages you will pay on average about 50 cents alone per parcel. With Endicia, it's 14 cents on the lesser classes, and free for priority and express. So if you ship at least 2 or 3 packages a day, Endicia already pays for itself. But on top of that, think to yourself how much time you would spend driving there, and dreadfully waiting in line. No hassle right? That's the point, and the point of all of these articles, to save you time and money. I want to show you how to efficiently improve your business so that you can focus on the hard part, finding good inventory.

You can save money doing postage online period, but many of you already know that and that is why you use shipping assistant, usps.com or stamps.com. If you are already using Endicia pat yourself on the back, you are already on the right track. For those who aren't, there are a few differences between them. Shipping assistant is a piece of software distributed by USPS, and while great it doesn't give you the functionality that it's competitors do. However, for low key operations, it is a great free alternative so I'm knocking it, I'm just saying that it isn't meant for very busy operations. As for Stamps.com, the one main and sole reason why I left them was because they do not offer international postage classes. They claim to, but that is with literally stamps and that isn't very fast, and it takes awhile to do. But besides that, with any company I expect a certain level of support, whether it be by email or phone, it is deserved and should be well tended to. Stamps.com has phone support, but good luck getting through, the only few times I did I had to wait over a half hour to get a real voice. And that was for non-urgent issues, what if I had something major that if it wasn't tended to it would hurt my business? Endicia has so far been great and their response time is untouchable. Plus, they offer multiple methods of international postage.

So now we've established the ups and downs to each. Shipping assistant is cool but it isn't as productive. Stamps.com has a great application, but support is non-existent and good luck with creating a “flowing” operation, because it won't happen. We are now left with Endicia. Endicia is Powered by a wonderful program of theirs called DaZzle.

DaZzle is the end user product, and the great thing about it is that it is a designer application. Not only does it allow you to meter and print postage, you can choose what you want your prints to look like. Add a logo, text such as “Your Amazon.com Marketplace Order” and such. You aren't restricted to pre-fabricated templates, so you can either design your own based on theirs, or eliminate stuff you don't want to save on ink. I use their standard 4x6 label template as seen below.

When I get my orders in from all of my venues and they get pulled into my AOB Account which I talk about in my Management 101 article, I weigh them on my digital scale, put those weights into AOB and export the file to Endicia's DaZzle and they stream right out of my thermal printer based on the template I created. When I'm done, I label all of the packages and import it back into AOB as one file and it plugs the postage amounts and DC numbers back in so that I have it in a Database which automates the confirmation emails to all of my customers. I save time, I save money, and there are little head aches as there would be if I had uses shipping assistant or Stamps.com, copying and pasting all of those DC numbers back into AOB to send to my customers. With the help of AOB and Endicia, it automates it for me. The only real input I have to make is the weight of each parcel and a few clicks. When I'm done, I go to USPS.com and request a pickup for the next day or I drop them off at my local post office, avoiding the lines since they are already metered and have postage. I just put them to the side for drop offs near the sorting bins. And for small order days when sales are weak which we all hate but it happens, I just throw them in the mail box.

After awhile it sounds repetitive that time = money, but even cliché phrases can be true. An hour spent unnecessarily fulfilling orders, could have been spent listing books or finding more for your business. You have to remember that you can work as hard as you want and as fast as you want doing it the conventional way, but you won't ever make things as efficient and cost saving as this. And whether you are already doing internet postage (not Endicia) or you are just going to the post office and waiting in line, you have to ask yourself from time to time is this really worth it? Am I really saving money waiting in line instead of paying a monthly fee for the ability to print postage myself? The unconventional way of doing something isn't easy for anyone but why not at least try it. Endicia is free for an entire month, and I'm willing to personally help you with it if you should ever need it, as I guarantee with anything I endorse. If it isn't want wanted which I doubt because it sold me in less than a day, then cancel your account and you lose nothing. The chance to be able to print your own postage, or for existing online users, the ability to bulk print and streamline your operation out weighs any doubts.

Try it, click the Endicia logo below and shoot me an email if you have any questions.

brian@booksellerslounge.com