Through the Internet, more and more budding entrepreneurs have started to set up their own online business. Generally, there are two types of businesses that are created online through the Internet. The former offers a wide range of services to potential customers. The other is selling different kinds of products to customers all over the world. Unlike a typical mall or grocery store, these products must be mailed to the customer who takes the product. That is why postal counters have become extremely important to anyone setting up a store over the Internet.
What is a postage meter?
A postage meter refers to a mailing system that allows online business owners to directly print paid postage on a label that they can attach to the package to be delivered. Postal meters have the ability to calculate the exact amount of postage the sender of the package or mail should pay based on weight. Postage is also calculated as to whether this should be sent by regular mail or priority mail.
Advantages of Postage Meters
The growing popularity of postal counters is primarily due to the many benefits their users have experienced. Here are just a few of them:
convenient shipping. Postage meters would allow you to print and pay postage for your package right from your home office. This would mean fewer trips to the local post office and waiting in line to get the products your customers bought.
Handle all kinds of emails. Postage meters have the ability to not only print labels for all packages. You can also print postage directly on envelopes if you’re sending large volumes of mail. You can also specify the handling of these mails, whether it be bulk mail, first class mail, or even express mail.
Accurate amount every time. There’s no need to worry about paying too much or too little for postage. Postage meters come with a scale that allows you to print the correct amount for the package based on size and weight.
Disadvantages of Postage Meters
Although it is unquestionable that postage meters provide a number of benefits to their users, there are a number of different disadvantages that users should face. Here are just a few of them.
Manual updates for postal increase. From time to time, the United States Postal Service increases the amount of postage that must be paid based on the package. Unfortunately, postal counters do not update automatically. The only way to get this updated is to contact your postal meter lessee to do it manually.
Lease Fees. Postal meters cannot be purchased as part of government restrictions. Instead, they are leased for long-term use by private companies. While postal meters save you money in terms of providing accurate postage rates for each label printed, you’ll need to pay the appropriate leasing fees to use this.
Troubleshooting by representatives only. Government regulations require that only authorized postal meter renters be able to fix the common problems you are bound to face when using this. This does not provide immediate resolution by the user of the franking agent. While waiting for a representative to fix the problem, they would have no choice but to go back to the traditional way of sending packages by going to the local post office for this.