Buying Stamps Online Compared to a Cloud-Based Mail Service
For a business owner, having much extra time nowadays has become as rare as seeing a shooting star. That’s why more old-school routine tasks are getting a digital makeover. Good news for our fellow explorers of the digital realm: There are helpful services ready to assist businesses and individuals by taking over some of those old routines. One good example is in mailing your business documents and invoices.
Picture this: You, nestled in your favorite spot, maybe it's the couch or a cozy nook, realize you need to urgently mail something. OK, so you get up to do it, only to discover that you’re out of stamps. Fear not! You can find platforms that will be your magic wand, letting you skip heading to the post office and standing in line.
There are two different approaches you can take with this: One is to just visit a platform where you can buy stamps online and print them yourself, and the other is to use a fully automated cloud-based mailroom. In both cases you save time and costs—but to a greatly varying extent. Both are like using a vehicle instead of walking, but in one case the vehicle is a car, and in the other, a spaceship. In this article, we are going to delve into the details and give you a comparison of these two alternatives so you can make an informed choice between them.
Online Stamps versus Taking to the Clouds
How convenient and cost-saving is each?
Print Your Own Stamps
An online stamps service saves you time compared to the traditional method. But it is preferable only if you don’t want to give up on the sweet nostalgia of wandering through a real-world post office or the inhaling the scent of paper and ink lingering in the air…jokes aside, you will still need to do your part in the form of manual work. Stocking materials, printing, maintaining your printer and buying ink for it, preparing each document, and stuffing envelopes will still be up to you. Using one of these services, you’ll still have to engage in time-consuming manual tasks and delivering mail to a postal facility. They do provide discount postage rates and have no minimum volume requirements; but you will not minimize additional costs for materials like paper and envelopes. Besides that, the monthly fee can be applied regardless of usage.
The good thing about online postage services is that you can print the exact postage needed for each piece of mail, minimizing the risk of overpaying. In contrast, physical stamps often come in fixed denominations, leading to potential wastage if you don’t have a combination of them that comes out to the exact amount, so that you have apply more than the required postage. And who hasn’t done that rather than run back to the post office?
It's pretty cool that, with some of these services, you can dive into a world of stamp designs, from classic to quirky. You can personalize your postage with photos or themed stamps, or even put your company logo on them.
Stuck with Online Stamp Shopping
When it comes to bulk mailing or sending a big batch, some platforms selling online postage may offer additional benefits or discounts. But you need to accumulate this batch, which is not always practical—for example, when it forces you to wait instead of sending out your invoices right after the job is completed. Not so good for your cash flow.
Speaking of time concerns, with this method, delivery time does not change compared to traditional mailing. The mail is still delivered with the standard postal speed–no additional features like barcodes that speed it up, no tracking portal where you can look up where it is while it’s on the way. In short, it’s still your basic regular mailing.
Sending Physical Letters and Documents from Your Computer
A cloud-based mailroom service can do even more than rescue you from the ancient art of physical stamp sticking and stuffing envelopes. It also takes away the task of printing. In fact, it removes all the manual processes with its innovative automation and provides additional bonuses that make this repetitive job smoother and faster.
There will be a few minutes’ learning curve to upload your first PDF documents, but once done, your desktop is your own virtual post office and a printing center—all in one!
Spending only a few minutes, users upload their documents printed to PDF in any number and pay online. Their documents are then printed, folded, stuffed into envelopes, and passed to the USPS within two business days—and all that is done automatically and securely by high-tech machines and cutting-edge software. With this approach, stamps are not used at all. (Hey, you can always buy those cool stamps and start an album.)
An important characteristic of a digital mailroom is the accelerated delivery achieved through taking full advantage of the United States Post Office's high-tech automation system. An Intelligent Mail barcode (IMb) is added to each address, which helps the documents skip several steps of USPS processing. Faster delivery compared to the conventional method of using stamps means your invoices arrive sooner so payments or other feedback from the recipients can also be faster, boosting your business’s overall cash turnover.
Discounts for online mailing will make your wallet happy: Because your communications are qualified as presorted bulk mail, no matter how many you send—even a single document—the final prices are half compared to traditional costs, and that’s with postage and materials included. You don’t need to take the time to buy stamps or any other materials at all or be pulled away from more critical tasks to dispatch your mail.
DocuSend Cloud-based Mailroom Features
Tracking
It’s convenient not to be guessing about your mail's journey and delivery status. It gives the option of online tracking to every user at no extra charge. Every document has its own ID, and the information about where and when it was last scanned can be seen in your personal portal, up to the last facility on the postal route.
Cost Savings
DocuSend minimizes internal mailing costs, provides a flat rate that includes both postage and materials, and eliminates monthly fees.
Buying stamps online does not remove additional costs for materials and typically involves a monthly fee.
Flexibility
An online mailroom is accessible from anywhere, making it easy to send USPS mail remotely, even from outside the USA.
Online stamps services, while they allow you to purchase postage remotely, don’t remove any of the other physical tasks, limiting flexibility in your mail processing routine.
NCOA (National Change of Adress) and Address Cleanup
NCOA is a crucial service that helps businesses and individuals keep their mailing lists updated with the latest address information for their contacts.
DocuSend provides NCOA and address cleanup without charging extra and reduces the risk of returned mail in case some of your recipients have relocated. The service includes reporting the address changes to you, the user.
Buying stamps online does not give NCOA integration, so the same level of address accuracy will not be achieved.
Personal Report Portal
Buying stamps online doesn’t give you the advantages of a personal customer portal. Having your own portal in an online mailroom lets you see your history and manage the process more efficiently, simplifying tracking and analysis.
Variety of Features for Better Customization
To meet different users’ needs, DocuSend has a rich array of features that go beyond basic mailing service. This includes, among other options, the ability to:
- Send certified and foreign mail from your desktop with a few clicks
- Automatically add flyers to every envelope
- Choose perforated paper
- Add a remittance envelope
- Use color printing
- Take advantage of double-sided printing
- Send marketing mail
You can even use an email solution that eliminates attachments, instead, providing links to the documents in a secure portal.
Choose Your Own Way
When it comes to picking a suitable service, the choice boils down to the level of automation and efficiency users seek. If your goal is to optimize time and resources and not deal with paper clutter, you may find that the all-in-one approach of DocuSend is a better fit. Yet the traditionalists among us may still find joy in the tangible act of selecting and affixing physical stamps. It is great that the mailing industry is transforming into a realm of choices, where each user can find their perfect solution.
Which one would you personally prefer and why? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below.
