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Get the latest information on the mailing and shipping industry.

Shopify Shipping Integration Now Available

September 24th, 2014 Comments off

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Stamps.com is excited to introduce a new shipping integration with popular commerce platform Shopify.

The integration gives Shopify customers new methods to simplify their order fulfillment process. Using Stamps.com, retailers can automatically import Shopify orders and print shipping labels for all USPS mail classes, both domestic and international. They also have access to the new BestRate shopping engine, which helps customers identify the most cost-effective mail class using box size, delivery time guarantee and shipping zone.

Stamps.com also posts order status details such as the USPS tracking number, shipping date and mail class directly to the Shopify customer’s account. Additional Stamps.com features now available include hidden postage, thermal printer support, automated customs forms, return shipping labels and more.

Use Shopify to Create Your Online Store
Shopify supports more than 100,000 online stores selling over $4 billion in products. Retailers can choose from more than 100 design templates for their website or can create a custom design for their online store. Shopify also allows retailers to instantly accept credit cards, without requiring a payment gateway, with one low rate for all major credit cards when using Shopify Payments. For retail locations, Shopify offers a Point of Sale system, which seamlessly integrates product, order and customer information between an ecommerce site and physical store. The company also provides Shopify Mobile, which allows retailers to accept payments from a mobile phone.

This integration is available for FREE to all customers of Stamps.com. Get instructions on how to connect your Shopify account to Stamps.com.

Categories: Integrations Tags: ,

8 Online Store Mistakes that Can Turn Off Shoppers

September 24th, 2014 Comments off
Couple In Kitchen Using Laptop with Yellow Oops Road Sign on the Screen.

Don’t let these common shopping cart mistakes turn away shoppers from your site

It’s essential to inspect and evaluate your online store every now and then. You never know when you’re doing something wrong or missing out on something important that’s making you lose a huge amount of traffic and potential profit every single day.

Here’s a wake-up call to alert you on common online store mistakes that actually turn off shoppers.

Mistake #1 – Not Having a Contact Page
This may sound like a far-off mistake for many online entrepreneurs. But if you’re a newbie in the biz, there’s a great chance you were not able to include a contact page in your online store. Perhaps the details are there somewhere in your website, but there’s no separate or dedicated contact page.

Even if you’re running your business from your own home, you should at least mention the city and state and provide a valid phone number with voice mail service. This way, shoppers are more assured that you’re a legit site.

Mistake #2 – Showing Distorted Photos
Even if you used a professional camera and originally had spectacular photos of your products, if you don’t resize them to suit the thumbnails or required size on your store, they won’t appear so spectacular after they’re uploaded. They might actually look distorted or stretched, surely turning off customers.

Remember that visuals are BIG when it comes to online businesses. Make sure to resize your photos to be a perfect fit. Check them out before publishing.

Mistake #3 – Having a Slow Responding Website
Many are not aware that the leading cause of a slow responding online store is high resolution pictures. Of course you want your photos to look professional, but this can be done even without the use of large files! Some stores make use of 2MB photos which appear really good and do not cause any delays when visitors click on tabs or move from one picture to another. A lengthy loading time can bore and exasperate shoppers, especially if they actually have good Internet connection in the first place.

Mistake #4 – Forgetting to Renew Your SSL Certificate
How would you feel if you visited a website and got the “This Connection is Untrusted” sign? Definitely frustrated and turned off. New visitors will especially tend to head on over to your competitors’ websites! Even returning customers may get ticked off.

This happens when you don’t renew your SSL certificate. People are likely to find your business suspicious and will not want to buy anything from your store. Furthermore, there’s a risk on the personal information released by buyers because of the unencrypted data.

Mistake #5 – Including Plenty of Pop-Ups
What’s another reason to turn off shoppers? Annoying pop-ups! It’s like having a poster flashed onto your face or a billboard spring up from the floor without warning while you’re looking through the items in a physical shop. Now that can be a major turn-off, especially if it occurs more than once or if web users can’t even find the X button easily.

Mistake #6 – Requiring Registration Upon Checkout
When a customer is about to pay for an item but is asked first to fill out a registration form upon checkout, there’s a great chance that he or she will just leave. You don’t want to risk this, right? So it’s definitely better to provide the option to check out as a guest rather than lose a sale.

Mistake #7 – Presenting a Lot of Confusing Buttons to Click
Many merchants love offering a one-click checkout option, which customers have repeatedly appreciated. When you have plenty of options, each one with an individual button, it can get confusing and overwhelming. Even if you offer different payment methods, it’s essential to keep everything clean and simple.

Mistake #8 – Utilizing a No-Charge Shopping Cart Software
Some start-up companies and newbie entrepreneurs on the Internet opt to use a free shopping cart software online. It’s definitely a turn-off because you won’t seem so legit and professional in the eyes of shoppers. Furthermore, there are numerous wonderful features you’ll be missing out on which can significantly boost the experience for your store visitors.

You’re fortunate to have gone through these common mistakes that many online store owners have committed in the past. At least you can make sure to avoid them in order to increase traffic to your store, improve your conversion rate, and boost your online reputation.

logo_3dcartJoe Palko is the CMO of 3dcart. Prior to joining 3dcart in 2011, Joe was a true internet pioneer co-founding his first e-commerce website in 1994 which later sold to America’s largest mail order pet supply retailer in 2007. Joe also co-founded Solid Cactus in 2001, which was later sold to the Web.com Group in 2009.

USPS Mail Carrier Food Drive – Saturday, May 10

September 24th, 2014 Comments off

Stamp Out Hunger!
This Saturday, May 10, local communities across America will be asked to join the U.S. Postal Service and its letter carriers to combat one of this nation’s growing problems — hunger.

Hunger affects about 49 million people around the country, including millions of children and senior citizens.

The Postal Service, the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), Campbell Soup Company, Feeding America and other partner organizations are working together to collect non-perishable food donations on Saturday, May 10. It is the nation’s largest single-day food drive in local communities across America.

Last year, letter carriers collected 74.4 million pounds of food donations along their postal routes, the second-highest amount since the NALC’s food drive began in 1992. That brought the total to nearly 1.3 billion pounds for the food drive.

How to Participate in Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive
To participate in the Stamp Out Hunger food drive, residents are encouraged to leave a sturdy bag containing non-perishable foods, such as canned soup, canned vegetables, pasta, rice or cereal next to their mailbox prior to the time of regular mail delivery on Saturday, May 10.

Letter carriers will collect these food donations as they deliver the mail and take them to their local food bank or pantry, including many affiliated with Feeding America.

For more information about the annual Stamp Out Hunger food drive, visit www.facebook.com/StampOutHunger

Categories: USPS News Tags:

Customer Spotlight: TheChainMailleLady

September 24th, 2014 Comments off

187716_blog-post-headerLauren Andersen, owner of TheChainMailleLadyTM shares her small business success story – How she got started, what challenges she overcame and how Stamps.com helped her along the way!

Stamps.com: Tell us about your business? How did you start?  logo
I retired due to an injury and was at home watching a jewelry program on television when I saw the chainmaille technique being demonstrated by a jewelry artist. I thought that her project was beautiful, so I taught myself how to create chainmaille jewelry. Once I got started, I created so many pieces that I ran out of friends and family to give them to! So my husband and I would sell my jewelry creations every week at our local farmers market. I eventually met the owner of Beadalon. At the time, Beadalon had just bought Artistic Wire and were looking for a designer to help them design a line of chainmaille products, and I became that designer. I have since written two booklets and one book and am in the process of writing my second book! I have also designed pliers that are used in chainmaille along with a travel kit, which are all produced and sold by Beadalon.

Stamps.com: What challenges did you face as a small business owner?  How did you overcome these? 
The logistics of running a small business can be extremely challenging and time consuming. I had to find a software package that could help me with the accounting and inventory functions of running my business. I also had to find a way to maximize the time I was spending on “office” or administrative type duties. My business is to design and create gorgeous jewelry, not spend it on the computer or at the Post Office!

photo_theChainmailleLadyStamps.com: How did you find out about Stamps.com?
While searching for an effective postage solution, I came across Stamps.com online.

Stamps.com: What did use prior to using online postage? 
I used a different online shipping service but I was unable to accurately weigh my packages. Moreover, the options for shipping costs outside the United States were very limited and did not include all of the options that you can get by going to the Post Office. This service also did not offer the ability to order shipping or labeling supplies.

Stamps.com: What made you choose Stamps.com? 
Just for the day-to-day operations of my small business, I need to be able to package and ship items of various sizes all over the world. To be able to do this proficiently and accurately, I looked into several packaging and shipping options. Since being a small business owner does not afford me the luxury of hiring either an outside company or extra staff to perform these tasks, I had to find a way to do it myself. Originally, I went to the Post Office daily and had to stand in line, which was costing me valuable designing time. I found I could use Stamps.com at home and save myself the daily trips to the Post Office. I could order my packaging supplies, mailing labels, and accurately weigh my packages and print shipping labels, all using one program thus saving me time and money!  

Stamps.com: Did you have any challenges with Stamps.com, when you first started to use the software? 
I actually found the software quite easy to use. Setting up the scale for the automatic weight options was a bit of a learning curve, but once I set it up, I never had to worry about the accuracy of the weight of my packages any more!

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Stamps.com: What types of packages do you mail out with Stamps.com? 
All sorts of packages! The most common ones though are First Class, Priority Mail, and International packages.

Stamps.com: Besides printing postage, are there other Stamps.com features that have helped your business?
Yes, absolutely! I love that I can order packaging supplies, mailing labels, print postage and print customs forms, all from right within the software.

Stamps.com: What features of Stamps.com do you use the most and how have these helped streamline your shipping process? 
I use the Address Book feature quite frequently – Saving customers addresses so I can recall them as needed is a great help! Also, being able to see the status of my packages and when they were shipped, along with the Reports section to check trends of my shipping services are all extremely beneficial features. I also use the Stamps.com Store to order shipping materials and labels. 

Stamps.com: What’s next for TheChainMailleLady? 
I will continue to design and teach classes in chainmaille.  I am also in the process of writing my second book. Finally, I hope to make additional appearances on Jewelry Television’s Jewel School and Beads, Baubles & Jewels.

To learn more about TheChainMailleLady, visit TheChainMailleLady.

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Categories: Customer Profiles Tags:

Important Info Regarding Mail Service to Ukraine

September 24th, 2014 Comments off

blog_ukraineShipping Alert:  Delivery Service to Ukraine Has Been Suspended!

USPS delivery service of letters and packages to Crimea and Sevastopol in Ukraine has been suspended.

Effective April 11, 2014, the United States Postal Service® has temporarily suspended mail service to Crimea and Sevastopol in Ukraine (postal codes 95000-99999).

Until further notice, all Post Office™ and other acceptance locations will not accept any mail destined to Crimea, Ukraine. The temporary suspension affects Global Express Guaranteed® (GXG), Priority Mail Express International®, Priority Mail International®, and First-Class Mail International®, First-Class Package International Service™, International Priority Airmail™ (IPA®) International Surface Air Lift® (ISAL®), and M-Bag items.

For already deposited items addressed to these destinations, Postal Service employees will endorse them “Mail Service Temporarily Suspended – Return to Sender” and then place them in the mailstream for return.

Upon request, the Postal Service will refund postage and fees on mail returned due to the temporary suspension of service, if the package was mailed prior to April 17, 2014.

We apologize for any inconvenience this causes and will update our customers as soon as delivery service has resumed.

If you have any questions please call Stamps.com Customer Care at 1-855-860-7867.  Or please visit the USPS Delivery Service Alert page located at http://about.usps.com/news/service-alerts/welcome.htm

Categories: USPS News Tags:

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