The internet is a boon to budding business owners, empowering more and more of them to launch online businesses. An e-commerce website makes it easy for businesses to sell products while a business website advertises services offered by an enterprise. Be it an ecommerce store that sells products or an online company that offers services to clients, mails and shipments are handled every day. In fact, for an e-commerce store, reputation rides on the quickness and superiority of shipping. If these businesses obtain postage meters, also called postage machines, they will save dollars and time in this critical task.
Postage meters allow business owners to directly stamp correct postage onto parcels and envelopes without the need to go to post offices to get consignments weighed, stamped and postmarked. They are equipped with a scale and can calculate the precise postage based on weight, receiver's location, and type of mail. Not only that, you can also keep track of the total amount used up on postage. Output also gets a boost as business owners can give more time to lucrative tasks that will grow the business.
Advantages of postage meter for a small business
They are very helpful to small businesses with already stretched budgets, and may not have extra personnel to run errands to the post office. A number of benefits of postage meters are:
* Quick and simple stamping: Postage machines offer the comfort of printing and paying postage right at the office. You avoid waiting in long queues at the post office to get shipments weighed and printed. All you need to do is make one trip to drop the consignments or you can arrange to have them picked up from your office.
* Simple management of all types of mails: Postage meters can take care of most type of mails - Parcel Post, Priority, Domestic First-Class, Express, International parcels, International First-Class etc. As it is very easy to print directly on envelopes, mass mails can be weighed and stamped quickly and accurately.
* Cost savings: Postage meters always print mails with exact postage unlike the occasional case at post offices where precise postage is not available all the time or when you weigh the package on a scale and estimate the postage from a look up table. Packages are weighed on a weighing scale on the meter and postage is computed accordingly.
Disadvantages of a postage meter for a small business
Though postage meters offer quite a few advantages, you should be aware of certain issues, such as:
* Lease contract charge: Use of postal meters, charges, and distribution is managed by the country's postal service. They cannot be purchased and have to be taken on lease for specific period. Leasing fee can range from $20 to $500 per month depending on the sophistication of the model.
* Change in postage charges: The postal service can make changes to the postage rates and this needs to be reflected in the postage meter also. While it is possible to update postage rates electronically in the new digital meters, lower cost models require updated manually by the leaser.
* Government restrictions on repair: The government postal authority restricts troubleshooting and repair of postage meters by anyone other than the certified leaser. This can cause delays and the business has no other option except going back to the traditional system of using regular postage stamps and mailing at the post office till the machine is back in working order.
The ease of use, drop in operational costs, and time savings from the use of postage meters cannot be overshadowed by the challenges. Businesses can gain from the professionalism these machines bring to official mails and consignments. Business owners too can invest more time and money on business development and to pursue new opportunities.
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