Sheila Frazier offers her customers postage as a perk.
The owner of Eaglesnest Secretarial Services, a two-person business in Marysville, Wash., about 35 miles north of Seattle, Frazier offers letter mailing as an add-on to her basic line, which includes resume writing, notary public services and transcription.
“Money, gas, time – I try to save my clients all of those,” she says. And, if they choose, a trip to the post office.
Instead of the long-traditional postage meter, Frazier handles mailing needs online through Stamps.com, an e-commerce site that charges customers a monthly fee for the convenience of buying postage online.
“I’ve had no trouble with them,” says Frazier, who has used Stamps.com since she launched her business in 2005. “For postage purposes, they’ve been perfect.”
Businesses large and small have long operated their own mailrooms to process high letter and package volumes. But with the convenience and cost benefits offered by services such as Stamps.com and the U.S. Postal Service’s own, limited pay-for-postage-online options, setting up your own post office has become a viable option for even the smallest business.
First, a Monthly Subscription
To get started you need a computer, Internet connection and printer – and a monthly subscription to the service.
In addition to Stamps.com, the USPS has authorized two other companies to offer online postage services: longtime metered-mail giant Pitney Bowes, and desktop-mail-software leader Endici...
Author: Ian Stewart
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