Business Growth
Shipping and mailing are two of those “invisible” cost centers in many businesses—you pay for postage, labels, carriers, packaging, handling, but may not have full visibility into how much you’re spending, where the inefficiencies lie, or whether your service levels justify the cost.
Without that view, it’s nearly impossible to control costs, take advantage of savings opportunities, or make data-driven decisions to improve your business.
Businesses and professional services organizations using data analysis in logistics and predictive analytics to gain shipping and mailing insights can uncover patterns they’d otherwise miss.
By using shipping and mailing data and analytics, you can:
Stamps.com offers built-in shipping and mailing analytics reporting to give businesses a clear line of sight into spend and performance.
Some of the key capabilities include:
1. Built-in reports for spending, volume, and history
You can view your mailing history, expenses, balances (including funds added, credits, and deductions), and export this information to CSV for deeper analysis. You can toggle between dollar amounts (spend) and counts (shipment volumes) and filter by date range, service, cost code, or carrier to get different perspectives.
2. Compare carrier performance and service types
You compare services across various carriers, including UPS, USPS, FedEx, DHL, GlobalPost, and other major shipping providers to optimize service levels and costs. The reporting also provides insight into transit times, exception rates, customer service, and fulfillment risks.
3. Export data for deeper intelligence and analysis
The tools support export to CSV for deeper analysis and allow you to import the data into your preferred BI dashboards, spreadsheets, or data pipelines. You can attribute spend and volume by customer, channel, and cost code—helpful for multi-channel operations. This makes it easy to build your own data delivery platform or extend your internal analytics in operations.
4. Mailing activity across your organization
Set budgets, allocate funds accurately, and have more control over your operations to turn a “cost center” into a well managed part of the business.
5. Time & productivity savings
Real-time and on-demand reporting that eliminates the need to reconcile manually and cuts back on your administrative efforts. Also, by making it easy to pick carriers and ship via the platform, you reduce manual delays.
Having the tools is one thing; using them effectively is another. Here are the top ways to leverage reports to reduce spending.
Pull your current shipping and mailing data for the last two years via the Stamps.com platform and review the spend. Look at the total spend and breakdown (by carrier, service level, and destination zones) and the total number of shipments and shipments by service level and package size/weight.
Use filters to break up the data by carrier, service type, and cost codes, which let you track expenses and bill postage spend back to specific clients, projects, or departments.
Look for patterns in the data, such as services where the cost is disproportionately high relative to volume or weight, package sizes where you might be overpaying, and carriers with below-average transit performance.
Based on your analysis, formulate cost-saving opportunities such as service-level right-sizing. If many items are shipped via expedited service but the delivery time doesn’t require it, consider a slower but less expensive service. You can also consider shifting carriers or transferring more volume to a more affordable provider if one offers a lower rate for a specific zone or weight.
With reporting in place that helps you make sense of your metrics, keep a close eye on how your actions are impacting spend and performance. Create recurring reports for a convenient way to track KPIs that matter most, such as change in cost per shipment or on-time delivery rate.
You can broaden the impact of your shipping and mailing analytics by sharing reports with stakeholders in finance, operations, fulfillment, and other areas of your business. The Stamps.com platform supports printable views and exports, making it easy to communicate and share knowledge across functions. You can also feed data from the platform into your own business intelligence dashboards or integrate data with your ERP or fulfillment systems.
Shipping and mailing are dynamic—rates and services are constantly changing. Regular reporting leads to measurable ways to save time on business mailing and reduce costs.
Here are several ways analytics via Stamps.com translate to savings:
United Federal Credit Union, for example, had no unified way to report or analyze mailing and shipping across 40 branch locations. After turning to Stamps.com, the credit union gained visibility and implemented optimizations that saved the company $200,000 in just 10 months.
These outcomes are typical for organizations adopting the best logistics analytics solutions for efficiency. Midwest Vision Partners provides further proof. The healthcare network saved $300,000 in one year by leveraging Stamps.com’s analytics tools to make budget decisions and implement cost-saving tactics.
Shipping and mailing aren’t just “necessary costs”—used smartly, they’re a lever for competitive advantage. Using shipping and mailing data and analytics via Stamps.com, you can transform raw data into insights that drive significant cost savings.
For small and mid-sized businesses and professional services organizations that ship and mail at scale or are growing rapidly, this kind of visibility can mean the difference between cost being a drag on margin or a managed, optimized expense. If you’re not yet tracking your shipping and mailing data with a centralized reporting tool, now is the time. See the difference smarter mailing can make—try Stamps.com for free today.
We offer new customers free supplies including free NetStamps and a 5 lb scale so they can get started with the basics required to get the most out of Stamps.com
Yes. Stamps.com allows you to print up to 10,000 labels in one click.
We offer new customers a 30-day risk free trial to see if Stamps.com is right for them. Cancelling any time within the 30-day time frame will result in no charges; however, if you continue past your 30‑day trial, you will be charged a monthly subscription including your first month's fee. Your service will continue uninterrupted unless you cancel.
Log in and navigate to your subscription page to cancel from within the app, or simply call our toll-free number 855-608-2677, M–F 8AM to 8PM CT and our customer support team will be happy to assist you. You can cancel any time.
Our rate advisor feature helps you calculate exact postage or shipping rate for anything you send. All you need is your item's weight and dimensions -- we do all the math for you and recommend cheapest, fastest, and best rates across all carriers.
Yes. Mac users can use our web app on any browser, or they can download our desktop app for Mac for free. Visit stamps.com/download to access all of our apps including our free mobile app.
Yes. Stamps.com can pull order or customer information from virtually any database, from Excel to SQL. Stamps.com also creates an export file that includes mail class, mail date, shipping cost, and tracking number.
No. All you need is a printer and your computer or phone. You can print shipping labels on plain paper or adhesive labels, postage on our NetStamps® labels or direclty onto any kind of envelope, and on Certified Mail® forms.
Yes. Our reports show you you activity and total spend by carrier, mail class, shipping service -- so you always know how much you send. You can customize your reports by date and, if you are on our multi-location plan, you can also view activity and spend per location and user.
Yes. You can add users to the same Stamps.com account - user limits vary by plan. If your organization has multiple locations, you can switch to our multi-location plan. Visit stamps.com/multilocation to learn more
Yes. You can connect your shopping carts and marketplaces including Shopify, eBay, Amazon, and Etsy with Stamps.com in under 5 minutes. You can also import your orders from a CSV file, Microsoft Excel, XML, or your own ODBC.
Our multi-location plan, designed for companies with 2+ office locations, gives each location the ability to print postage and labels as needed, while capturing information about how much is sent and spent in a single dashboard to give the business the ability to budget. No leases, no contracts, and best-in-class support available when your users need it. Visit stamps.com/multi-location to learn more
Nonmachinable envelopes might be non-rectangular, rigid, unevenly thick, or have non-paper closures, meaning they cannot be processed efficiently by USPS's automated sorting equipment, and require special handling, resulting in a surcharge in addition to the standard postage.
The Shipment Confirmation Acceptance Notice (SCAN) form ensures that your packages are scanned by the USPS when they are dropped off or picked up by a mail carrier, so your customer can feel confident that their package is on its way.
Using Stamps.com, you’ll be able to create a SCAN form with a few clicks. Then, hand the form to the clerk or mail carrier, and they will scan the barcode on the form. This scan records an Acceptance event for all the packages associated with the form without having to scan each package individually.
Stamps.com gives you access to all mailing and shipping services from USPS, UPS, DHL, and other top carriers. Visit stamps.com/carriers for a full list.
We support all printers from laser and inkjet to high speed thermal printers.
With USPS, Stamps.com customers have access to Commercial Base, Commercial Plus, Cubic Pricing, and Negotiated Service Agreements. Savings include:
With UPS, Stamps.com customers get up to 73% off UPS 2nd Day Air® and up to 77% off UPS® Ground Daily Rates.* Plus, many common surcharges are waived, including the residential surcharge for UPS Ground shipments.
*UPS rates are limited to shipping from the continental U.S. only. These rates and discounts exclude shipment origins from Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Alaska. These rates and any applicable discounts are subject to change at any time without notice.
Stamps.com makes international shipping easy by offering international services from USPS, UPS, and other carriers including GlobalPost. We make customs forms hassle free, so you can complete them online with ou guidance, and simply print to include with your international shipment.
After a label is printed, Stamps.com automatically uploads the USPS tracking numbers, order info, and mail class back to the order source, including eBay, Amazon, Etsy, and your shopping cart.
