Two companies that help online merchants with their shipping automation were scooped up this year by Stamps.com, highlighting the importance of ecommerce to the shipping industry. Stamps.com paid $22 million in cash for ShipWorks this month, and it paid $50 million (plus Read more
Amazon is working with the USPS, offering it a variety of innovative services, including same-day delivery and Sunday delivery. The Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) has now granted the Postal Service permission to test a new grocery-delivery service called Customized Delivery, Read more
The USPS has published its “Mail-By” dates. To ensure that holiday mail and packages are delivered in time for Christmas (December 25, 2014), the Postal Service recommends the following mailing and shipping deadlines: Dec. 2: First-Class Mail International Dec. 2: Read more
As with the certainty of death and taxes, online merchants can count on shipping costs to rise each year, even as consumers increasingly expect to receive free shipping. Like clockwork, UPS is raising rates for 2015, and sellers who use Read more
It may have seemed like a joke when eBay CEO John Donahoe told BusinessWeek that excess capacity in newspaper trucks could make same-day delivery economical. But one major rival is taking the concept seriously. Amazon is using the same logistics network that Read more
A lot of time and money is being invested into ways to get ecommerce orders delivered into the hands of consumers. UPS began laying the groundwork for package pickup a few years ago as an alternative to at-home delivery. It’s Read more
eBay sellers say the company has once again placed them into its Global Shipping Program (GSP). The program is controversial for several reasons – not the least of which is that it is an opt-out rather than opt-in program. A Read more
While many online sellers expect a postage rate increase each year, the cost of mailing a letter will remain the same come January. The USPS will not raise prices in January for Market Dominant products, good news for sellers of Read more
More people will start their online shopping for holiday gifts earlier this year in order to ensure on-time delivery, according to a recent survey of 1,000 U.S. adults conducted by ORC International for Pitney Bowes in August 2014. In fact, half of Read more
There’s a lot of talk about how postal services around the world can survive given falling letter volume, and some are experimenting more than others. One such entity is Australia Post, which has launched a program this year that brings Read more
