Shipping has always been one of my least favorite parts of ebay selling. 

We normally ship 75 to 100 items per week, and before Stamps.com we always spent the better part of five or six hours hand addressing shipping lablels.  Not an impossible task, but one destined to provide plenty of finger cramps.  Stamps.com changed all of that for us. 

We have been using Stamps.com for four years now, and there are many things I like about it:

1)  Stamps.com gives all of your mailings a professional look.  No matter how big, or small your business is - you can print a professional looking label with postal barcodes, return address, and customer information.

2)  Stamps.com gives you the flexibility to add your logo to all mailing labels for an even more professional look.  Adding a logo is as easy as uploading your picture - It doesn't get much easier than that.

3)  Stamps.com lets you use a label printer.  We use a Zebra LP-2844, and Stamps.com supports it flawlessly with perfect looking labels every time.  For those of you who use Paypal shipping, you probably know what I mean, when I say using their Java applet to power your label printer can cause severe hair loss as you sit helplessly by yanking out big chunks, dealing with freeze ups and Java applet problems.

4)  Stamps.com allows you to see at a glance in their activity window - every transaction or label you have printed, so you can easily find a label if a customer does have a question on their shipment.  When a customer asks me for shipping details - I pull up my transaction log, click a button, and pull up a log that shows shipping details - how item was mailed, if insured, when label was printed, all post office scans, and when item was delivered, and to what address it was delivered.  I just copy this record, and forward to my customer.

5)  Stamps.com allows you to email your customer shipping info as you are printing the label, so you can keep your customers in the loop.

6)  Stamps.com allows you to print a sample label so if you are not sure your printer is working correctly, you can print a sample first. No misprinted labels.

7)  Stamps.com makes determining your monthly postagecosts a breeze.  Go to the activity bar, select postage, and you see all of your postage purchases for at least a one year period.  Put an x by the items you wish to print, and you have a professional print out of your postage costs.  With Paypal shipping life is not so simple - You need to print every page as you ship, and add them all.  With Stamps.com, you can get the report when it is convenient for you.

8)  Stamps.com lets you reprint the label if you make a mistake on postage, or if the label should mis-print in your printer.  The catch is - you need to wait for the label to print, before moving on to the next one.

9)  Stamps.com offers a postal scale that plugs into the USB port of yourcomputer, and will automatically input the shipping weight into Stamps.com.  No more errors with package weight.

Now for the downside.  Stamps.com charges a $15.99, or $24.99 monthly fee for the right to use their service.  If you can stomach this, we think you will be very happy with the service, and its advantages over hand addressing everything, or with using Paypal Shipping's clunky interface.

One other interesting fact, Stamps.com verifies addresses against the post office computer, and shoots back a request for more information, or a better address if you entered a bad address.  More money saved, and less unhappy customers, because you were able to catch the mistake before mailing your item.

Try it - You will like it.

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