Shipping Solutions: Save Time. Save Money. Boost Productivity - Endicia and Stamps.com

I listen to talk radio from time to time and often hear Stamps.com

advertisements (as well as Carbonite, Constant Contact, Barracuda

Networks and a few other tech oriented vendors).

From time to time I receive news about Endicia, which, like Stamps.com sells software to help businesses better manage shipping products or other types of mail.

I would assume that just about every business that ships products

(or other kinds of mail) to customers has decent shipping software

solution. However, for those of you who manually calculate shipping

and send mail using traditional postage solutions (like stamps) you are

not being as productive as you can be and you're in fact simply wasting

time and money.

Stamps.com makes the case for its software quite well, but the case

is equally applicable to Endicia or any other software postage/shipping

solution. Their web site reads:

It is for businesses such as fulfillment houses, online merchants

and other companies that would like to process their shipping

efficiently by directly pulling order and customer information from an

existing database or file. If you process a large number of orders

everyday or need an easy way to connect your shipping department to

your orders database.

Shipping software can reduce the amount of time you spend every

day in the shipping process and saves time and reduces errors from

typing addresses and order information incorrectly. It also helps you

improve your daily workflow with advanced features such as bar code

scanner support for easy order retrieval, auto print and SCAN forms.

Stamps.com professional shipper starts at $35 per month and also has a rate of $20 for lower volume shippers.

Endicia has a range of solutions, starting at $10 a month and up to

$35 (not including the $100 a month option for super shippers). Endicia

has several good case studies of how customers are using its services, one of the many it has is from customer, Yan Can Cook. The case study in part reads:

Yan Can Cook, Inc. uses key Endicia features, such as label

customization, e-mail notification, address validation, and Stealth

Indicia. Label customization adds the Yan Can Cook logo to labels,

which helps greatly in branding the company. E-mail notification alerts

customers that their orders are on their way, thereby providing them

with excellent customer service and decreasing call volume. Endicia's

address validation compares each shipping address to the Postal

Service’s national Zip+4 database to obtain the correct 9-digit Zip

Code. The system also corrects other common addressing errors (e.g.,

spelling corrections, formatting, and abbreviations), thus contributing

to successful mail piece delivery. Stealth Indicia, by hiding the

postage amount, protect the company's fair shipping and handling fees

without angering customers.

If you are shipping a sufficient volume of mail to cause you

headaches at the end of the day, and you are not using software to save

time, save money and boost productivity in your shipping then you need

to consider a solution. It's hard enough being a small business owner

but even hard and might I say 'silly' to not invest in technology

solutions to help you run your business even better.

Both Endicia and Stamps.com offer very liberal trial periods, check them out and see which solution is best for you.