subject: Postal Machines - What Are The Benefits And Drawbacks Of Leasing For Business [print this page] The internet is a gift to budding business owners, enabling them to launch online businesses. An e-commerce website makes it easy for businesses to sell products while a business website allows businesses to promote their services. Be it an ecommerce store that sells products or an online company that offers services to customers, mails and shipments are handled every day. For an e-commerce store, reputation rides on the swiftness and superiority of distribution. With postage meters, also called postage machines, business owners will save dollars and time in this critical job.
Postage meters allow business owners to directly stamp correct postage onto parcels and letters thus saving a trip to the post office to get shipments weighed, stamped and postmarked. They are equipped with a scale and can calculate the accurate postage based on weight, destination, and type of mail. What's more, these machines also help you keep track of the amount used up on postage. Output also gets a boost as business owners can give more time to profitable tasks that will grow the business.
Advantages of postage meter for a small business
They are an enormous help to small businesses as they cannot put in too much time into non-core business tasks, and may not have extra personnel to make frequent trips to the post office. Some of the key benefits of using postage meters are:
* Convenient stamping: Postage machines offer the comfort of printing and paying postage without leaving the office. No long queues at the post office to get shipments weighed and stamped. You only need to make the trip to drop off the letters or packages or you can arrange to have them collected from your place of work.
* Easy management of all types of mails: Postage meters can take care of all kinds of mails - Parcel Post, Priority, Domestic First-Class, Express, International parcels, International First-Class etc. As it is effortless to print directly on envelopes, mass mails can be weighed and stamped speedily and correctly.
* Cost savings: Postage meters always meter mails with exact postage unlike the occasional case at post offices where exact 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 calculated on that basis along with the type of mail and where it's being sent.
Disadvantages of a postage meter for a small business
Though postage meters offer numerous pros, you should be aware of certain issues, such as:
* Lease contract charge: Use of postal meters, rates, and distribution is administered 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 based on the model selected.
* Change in postage charges: The postal service can make changes to the postage rates and alterations need to be made in the postage meter also. While modern digital meters can be updated electronically, older models require updated manually by the leaser.
* Government restrictions on repair: The government postal authority does not allow troubleshooting and repair of postage meters by any person except the authorized leaser. This leads to unwarranted delays and business owners have no other option except going back to the conventional system of using regular postage stamps and mailing at the post office till the machine is repaired.
The convenience, decrease 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 focus better on business development and to pursue new opportunities.
by: Daljeet Sidhu
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