Sweet Endicia

Who knew that my life could be so easy? Well, at least part of it... Endicia is the best thing that has happened to me since... well, since Real Simple contacted me and said they wanted samples. Who knew that shipping could be so easy?

At first I wondered why anyone would pay $9.95/ month for shipping services, when Paypal does it for free. One night, as I was complaining about shipping woes on the Etsy forums, I learned that if I had a shipping service (Endicia, Stamps.com, and others), that I would be able to print first class international postage from my computer (which paypal does not offer, and click-n-ship via the USPS website does not offer). I was elated! I would never have to go to the post office again!

A note on post offices: in the small town where my mom lives, there is a sweet little post office with a nice clerk that knows my mom by name and is always very polite. It is not an unpleasant experience to visit the post office for her. Me, on the other hand... it is a nightmare. There are never less than 20 people in line, the employees are rude, short (and I don't mean physically), and worst of all they are inconsistent. I literally HATE going to my post office.

On this particular night, I had had a horrible experience (yet again) with the post office, and I started thinking that $9.95 a month really wasn't so bad even if it only saved me one trip to the PO a month. Then I talked to my mom, she talked some sense into me (at the time I only shipped about once a week international first class). Well, I hit a few days of Aussies and New Zealanders shopping me up, and I was like - this is it! I'm signing up. I can't take it anymore!

So, first I did a little Pay-It-Forward, and posted in the forums that I wanted to sign up and the first person to convo me with their acct number would get a referral. I read on Endicia's website that if you referred someone, then you got a free month. So I thought I'd let a fellow Etsian reap the benefits.

So, I signed up. It was SO easy, like one step or something. It took about 30 seconds. I used my Paypal credit card to buy some postage (so it comes right out of my Paypal account), and instantly I was ready to print. There is some software to download (which was very fast, too), and you can add your company name and logo or whatever. The best part is, you can pick whatever size/shape label you want and you can customize what it says, what font you want to use, how big and everything! And the best part? I get a free month trial (well, not just me, everyone does).

I went to print my first label, and about fell out of my chair when I realized how easy and fast it was. I just have to highlight my address from my Etsy receipt, copy it, then when I click in the address box in Endicia, it automatically pastes it there (it's smart like that). It automatically checks the address against the USPS database for errors, corrects it, adds the 4 digit zip after the regular zip, adds it to your address book, and puts it on your label in the format you specified. Then you just double click on the postage area, and use drop down menus to say how much it weighs, and the postage is automatically calculated right then. One day if I get a digital scale with a USB port, I won't even have to do this step - it will automatically weigh it for me, enter the info in, and calculate it.


*sigh* it just doesn't get any easier than this - where you counting the number of clicks? Just a handful. Just a handful of clicks and my label is printed. And it has my logo on it. And it looks great. And I can do this for any type of shipping - international or otherwise. It will even print the customs form for me. Awesome. yes. Finally, a wonderful business tool!

If you want to join, just shoot me an email and I'll send you my account number for a referral *wink*