Parcel - April 2008 - (Page 43)

locator system to ﬁnd the customer’s desired product at another store or in their warehouse. Instead of having the other store hold the item, or having it shipped from store to store, the customer can buy the item and have it shipped directly to their home with the help of a shipping API. Olympia Sports offers this unique service for free, and the customer doesn’t pay for shipping. Here’s how it works: a customer is shopping at Olympia Sports’ store in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, the Bloomsburg store does not have the color shoe he is looking for. After entering the customer’s address information, an employee at the Bloomsburg store locates the item the customer wants at Olympia Sports’ store in Ellsworth, Maine. A salesperson in the Ellsworth, Maine store then packs the item and prints the pre-paid USPS shipping label with the customer’s address from their Point-Of-Sale software integrated with a shipping API. The employee then applies the shipping label to the box. The next day, the package is picked up by a Postal Carrier and the new pair of shoes is delivered to the customer’s doorstep in 2-3 days. This seamless operation allows Olympia Sports to retain customers that may have gone to another store to buy the out-of-stock item. Happy customers are returning customers, and by using a shipping API, Olympia Sports has many happy customers. Paul Fitzpatrick, Director of Operations and Distribution at Olympia Sports notes, “The support we have received from the local USPS staff and the employees at Endicia has been outstanding; they have all worked diligently to ensure the system works as we need it to.” Paul estimates that they save about 45% on shipping costs using USPS compared to their previous carrier. Plus, no matter how many locations Olympia Sports decides to ship from, their shipping API allows them to use just one postage account. All 155 stores are sharing a single postage account, which means no more headaches for the accounts payable department. Using a shipping API for business-to-consumer shipping saves users time and money by providing them the savings and beneﬁts of the Postal Service with direct integration into their application. Likewise, it provides users the opportunity to fully integrate the USPS in their product without upfront licensing or certiﬁcation expenses. Additionally, since the shipping APIs are 100% web-based, users can eliminate the challenges of deploying and updating software. A shipping API is the perfect solution for business-to-consumer shipping. To learn more about shipping APIs, speciﬁcally Endicia’s Label Server, please visit www.endicia.com/labelserver. ■ www.PARCELindustry.com Spring 2008 21 http://www.endicia.com/labelserver

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Parcel - April 2008

PARCEL - April 2008 Contents Editor's Note Moving Forward Recycling for Safety’s Sake Want Some Good News? Negotiations Have No Finish Line... Lowering your Parcel Shipping Costs Meeting Industry Challenges New Pricing, New Opportunities Time to Track It’s Scan-tastic! 10 Recycling Facts The New USPS Law Changes New Law, New Opportunities for Package Shippers A Diamond in the Rough Seven Shipping Trends for 2010 ...and Beyond The Move Update Changes A Simple Shipping Solution A Case Study in Efficiency New Products and Services Industry News Advertiser Index

Parcel - April 2008

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