When USPS was founded in 1775, Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first Postmaster. Nowadays USPS has 617,254 employees and 211,264 vehicles. In fact, USPS operates the largest civilian vehicle fleet in the world but has outsourced the air cargo since 2009.
USPS shipping integration for eCommerce is enabled through free API’s. This means that USPS makes API’s available that can be built into shopping carts and automatically retrieve delivery costs and calculate prices.
USPS Free Boxes Program
The USPS free boxes program offers free shipping supplies in exchange for sending the mail in a priority class. Therefore, USPS incentivizes customers to send their packages in classes that are priced higher and can thus make a higher profit at the end of the day. In eCommerce, however, this is beneficial because customers expect priority shipping anyway and merchants want to provide the best possible customer service anyway. Therefore, eCommerce shipping with USPS is favorable to merchants because boxes, envelopes, etc. come at a zero cost. The shipping supplies are either sent to merchant homes or can be picked up at the local post office.
Delivery with USPS on eBay and Amazon
USPS for eCommerce shipping is extensively used on eBay but not Amazon. This is due to the fact that Amazon has partner contracts with UPS and FedEx but not USPS. Therefore, sellers on Amazon do not receive discounts for sending through USPS. However, sometimes when the orders can’t be fulfilled by UPS or FedEx, even Amazon has to deliver through USPS.
This is different for eBay sellers. USPS shipping rates are subject to a discount of up to 25% if sellers purchase the eBay labels. All you need to do is buy the discounted USPS labels on eBay. Therefore, it makes sense to ship USPS for eBay. To have a look at the exact savings and shipping details refer to the table below.
Use Algopix to estimate USPS delivery costs
By using Algopix, online merchants are able to retrieve USPS shipping costs within a matter of seconds for specific products. All you need to do is enter the product identifier, purchasing price, product condition, type of shipment and target market in the search field. The output, amongst others, includes an expense breakdown that incorporates USPS shipping costs when shipped from the USA. This is especially relevant for the calculation USPS eBay shipping rates. Based on this data, online sellers can better evaluate sales opportunities and analyze their current inventory.
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