03/ 27/ 2002
If your business spends $30-100 and more on postage per month, you might benefit from using Pitney Bowe's "Personal Post Office," which is for very low volume usage, or the "B702 PostPerfect Postage" meter, which is for businesses with higher volume. In today's and next week's Workshops, Jeffrey Moses describes the features and benefits of these machines.
Pitney Bowe's "Personal Post Office" is for small businesses that use from $30-$50 of postage monthly.
Specific features of The Personal Post Office:
- Prints 8-10 envelopes per minute (handles large envelopes).
- Manual feed.
- Pin number security for operation.
- Automatic date setting.
- Postage access takes approximately 90 seconds via phone line.
- Meter alone, without scale rents for $19.75 per month.
- Scale weighs to 0.1 ounce accuracy. Determines exact postage.
- Digital, inkjet printing (red ink only).
- $33.95 per inkjet cartridge.
- First, convenience. With a meter, you don't have to run to the post office for stamps, and you'll never again run out of postage during a late night mailing. The meter prints 8-10 envelopes a minute, and the postage is downloaded via the phone line. The equipment comes with all required hookups. All you have to do is plug it into the phone line and set-up transmission. Payment for postage can be made by credit card or an account can be set up for quarterly billing.
- Second, incremental savings on mailings. Because of the exactness of the scale, you won't have to guess how many stamps you need to put on a heavy envelope. You'll know exactly how much postage is required for any piece of mail. Each additional ounce requires less postage than the first ounce, so in theory this feature can save you money. Pitney Bowes advertising declares a 20 percent saving on postage. This is an estimate, but seems reasonable.
Note: the inkjet cartridges for the Personal Post Office cost $33.95 and print postage on approximately 400-700 envelopes. Therefore the cost of the cartridge needs to be factored into the total printing cost. If each cartridge prints 400 envelopes, the additional cost would be about $0.085 per envelope. - Third, achieve a professional appearance for your envelopes. Almost all large businesses and organizations use postage-meter printing rather than hand-applied stamps, both for convenience and for the fractional savings on extra ounces. This is a subtle feature, but it will make your company look larger.
One attractive feature of the Personal Post Office is the option to automatically print special messages on your envelopes. With a click of a button you can print any message. The machine comes with seven pre-loaded messages. Specific ads or messages for your business can be set up by Pitney Bowes upon request. Pricing for this service varies, depending on the length of message and complexity of logo or other designs.
Pitney Bowes can be contacted directly toll-free at 1-800 574-8639 (http://www.pitneybowes.com). There are, of course, other companies selling competing equipment. You can find them by typing in "Postage Meters" or "Mailing Equipment" in your favorite search engine. Or you can look under "Mailing Equipment" or "Mailing Services" in the Yellow Pages.
