Online Postage: To Buy or To Print?

You may consider yourself literate in the ways of the Internet, and feel at home doing a bit of online shopping or at-home printing from time to time, but still be hesitant to adopt the idea of purchasing your postage stamps from an online vendor, or even more reluctant to attempt printing stamps using your PC. But the realities of online commerce are such that you can actually do both, with surprisingly little effort. Whats required?

First, you should really have high-speed Internet accessespecially if you want to tackle printing your own postage. A dial-up connection may be adequate for you to simply to buy stamps and pay for them online, having them delivered via your trusty postal carrier. But if you want to have immediate access to the postage you pay for, youll need to have a connection which wont fail in the middle of your printing job. So DSL or T-1 is essential.

Youll also need a credit card, and the willingness to trust your financial information to the site at which you buy stamps or set up and online account to print postage. And youll need at least one email account, but if youre someone who buys enough stamps postage to make printing your own postage seem like a good idea, you are probably already doing lots of communications by email anyway.

You can run an Internet search to find several sites which will either let you buy stamps online and have them sent to your home, or will let you set up an account, for which youll pay a reasonable monthly fee, for the privilege of being able to order and print postage right from your home printer. What you pay in a monthly fee, youll almost certainly make up for in the amount of money you save on the cost of your actual postage.

If you are buying stamps online, youll simply click on a button on a stamp selling site which takes you to the US Postal Service site, where you can select from a menu offering stamps of different denominations. Select the kind and number of stamps you want, add them to your shopping cart, and hit the pay button when you are ready to check out. Youll be asked for the address to which the stamps will be shipped, and your credit card information.

The disadvantage of buying US postal stamps online is that you will have to wait for up to seven business days to receive your order, but if you do not feel confident that you can successfully print your own postage, it is still a way to avoid those time-consuming trips to the Post Office.

If you get an account at a site which lets you print your own postage, on the other hand, youll be spared not only the rips to the Post Office, but the wait for your stamps to arrive, so that your business can maintain an uninterrupted flow. Youll also be able to weigh your mailings, so that you dont spend a single unnecessary cent in the amount of postage, and most sites will check your addresses against those in the US Postal Service database, so you wont be having mail returned to you.

But either way, using the Internet to buy stamps or print postage is a far cry from venturing out in all kinds of weather to stand in long lines--especially at the holidays--as you wait to get your stamps!

I buy stamps for good-looking letter!

I prefer to print postage. I collect printed postages.

Real collector - real stamps!

I'm buying stamps only. No print postage service in my country!

I buy stamps. I want the receiver to appreciate it, learn from it and enjoy it just like I do when I receive letters with real stamps.