Re: Need Shipping Recommendation

Agent_C wrote: >

Register directly with USPS.com; ...

If ya gotta go to the PO counter anyway, you don't even
need to register in order to print labels with DC via USPS.

... it's a penny or two cheaper ...

Howzat? Not that I dispute that, but my impression is that
PP-PB is charging the same rate as USPS does.

The labels print a little sharper as well.

That seems to be a function of your printer and its driver,
(and is definitely true for my 'ol Laserjet 4 on Win2K).
What PB burps up is 96 dpi, which would be sort of OK,
except that it's a grayscale image for no rational reason,
and the MS Win2K LJ driver has no option for "no dither" on
grayscale.

I print to PDF and Photoshop the label to flatten it to bitmap
to keep the printer driver from doing horrible 96 dpi dither
patterns that, to my eye, likely render the 2D indicia code
unreadable to scanners.

On the plus side, I can get 2 labels on a *** this way,
excise the "steal me" eBay and PayPal banners, and
fix any problems in the address, which raises another
point in favor of the USPS Click'n'Ship ...

USPS will flag address problems prior to label print.
The PayPal-PB process has NO error handling, and if the
buyer has provided you an address that is not already in
USPS "standardized" form, one of 3 things will silently
happen:

1. The address will be safely converted to standardized.
This is what normally happens, and you can usually
tell because the ZIP becomes a ZIP+4.

2. The address will fail validate altogether, and will
print in it's raw as-given form. No ZIP+4. May take
an extra day in transit, but if it's a Confirmed
address, it presumbly will get there as reliably as
the buyer's CC bill does.

3. The address will be materially altered to something
that validates in the USPS database, but is at some
risk of major misdelivery. Got one of these in work now.

I've had all 3 happen. I still use the PayPal-PB process,
but vet addresses via USPS first.
<http://zip4.usps.com/zip4/welcome.jsp>

--
Regards, Bob Niland mailto:name@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.access-one.com/rjn email4rjn AT yahoo DOT com
NOT speaking for any employer, client or Internet Service Provider.

.

Quantcast