Those customers may also demand a refund or a return of the sold items. Customers who perceive that the merchant overcharges them for S&H fees will choose not to do business with the merchant again. The merchants service representative will have to calm the customer down, explain the charges and potentially provide discounts or rebates to keep the customer happy. This usually angers the customer and causes the merchant extra support cost, lost sales, poor customer satisfaction and lost customer goodwill.Ī large number of customers who notice the disparity between the S&H charges and postage fees will tie up the merchants customer service phone line with complaints about the perceived overcharge. Ironically, the customer may perceive that the merchant charges excessive S&H fees, even if the merchant has the lowest such fees in the industry. This highlighted disparity between the postage fees and S&H charges gives the customer a perception of being overcharged. This sidetracks the customer experience: instead of the joy of receiving an eagerly anticipated package, the customers attention is drawn to the cost of the package. When a package bearing a stamp, a postage meter strip or a Post Office payment strip arrives at a customers doorstep, it plainly and boldly displays the postage amount paid by the shipper (see Figure 2 on page 51). Unfortunately, customers usually confuse S&H fees with postage charges. For instance, a lightweight package shipped with USPS First Class Mail and electronic Delivery Confirmation costs the merchant $1.19 in postage however, in order to cover packaging, labor and overhead, the merchant may charge $7.99 for S&H. The difference between S&H fees and postage charges can also be very significant. The S&H fees typically cover a variety of expenses, including postage fees, packaging material, insurance, labor, overhead and, often, a profit margin. What do catalog merchants, Internet retailers, online auction sellers, many department stores and other sellers have in common? They all need to ship their products to customers, and most charge their customers S&H fees. This eliminates a serious customer satisfaction roadblock. Stealth Indicia allow merchants to ship products to customers without drawing attention to the difference between the shipping & handling (S&H) fees paid by the customer and the postage paid by the merchant. Stealth Indicia are an approved form of USPS postage evidencing that hides the postage amount paid by the shipper from the shipping label (see Figure 1 on page 50). USPS package services offer shippers significant savings and other advantages in certain mail classes, package weights and destinations. Postal Service shipping tools (such as electronic Delivery Confirmation) have proven to be a popular and cost-effective means to take advantage of USPS package services without the limitations and hassles of manifesting. “It depends on things like what zone you’re shipping from, how quickly you want it to get there, the weight and other factors.Desktop shipping systems that combine Stealth Indicia with U.S. “We recognize that there is a time and a place for many shippers, particularly when you get to mid- and high-volume operations, to use private carriers as well as USPS,” she said. Johnson said the service has the potential to create more ecommerce traffic for the USPS, because retailers who might have opted for a private carrier to avoid the prepaid return costs can now opt for the postal service instead. This takes the hassle out of returns for consumers and eliminates the retailer’s cost of paying for all those prepaid labels.”
“They have so many other options instead of going to a UPS or FedEx store. “Consumers can pop back a return from their home, a postal box or a USPS counter,” Johnson said. But they weren’t able to include non-prepaid labels unless they met the threshold of 10,000 pieces returned per year. A 25 cent transaction fee is charged for each scanned label, and the scan and payment status of each label can be tracked online through Endicia.Įmma Johnson, Endicia’s director of marketing, said the company was hearing from customers who wanted to use USPS for returns because the costs are often lower compared to private carriers. Postage is automatically deducted from the retailer’s Endicia postage account when a mail stream scan is detected.
ENDICIA POSTAGE RATES PDF
Or if a customer wants to send a package back, the retailer can create a return label in PDF and have it emailed to them. – select the rate, print the pay-on-use label, sort it into the package and ship it. When preparing an outbound package using Endicia’s returns solution they choose the type of USPS service they want – Priority Mail, Parcel Select, etc. Retailers have a couple of options with the service.
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