Business Postage

[Emsickle]

Smartstamp, manual at the Post Office, or Franking Machine??

Which would you recommend as being the best and most cost effective?

We've been offered a 30 day free trial of a franking machine by Pitney Bowes, which has £20 of free postage, but I'm wondering whether its worth me having to take the post to the Post Office to post rather than in the post box. So I'm wondering whether to go ahead with the free trial and see what its like, or not really.

[Chiggs]

just a quick one as I'm off out, but for some reason pitney bowles rings alarm bells with me, i may have seen something about it on UKBF?

[funkyfish]

I Love smart stamp - been using ages now.

You can use it a marketing tool by changing the logo to reflect your latest offer and it looks really good when customised properly.

Loads of paper size and label size options.

£5 per month and you top up when you like.

Easy to set up too!

[buppybean]

I was given the hard sell on the franking machine thing with the free postage last year.
Im not sure if it was the same company but its probably the same sort of thing.

Anyway I finally gave in and said send me the contract to look over and OMG the get out clauses and stuff they had in small print was mad.

There was so much on the back of the contract that I would be liable for that I didn't even read half of it.

The main thing I did notice is that I would be liable for all the fixing costs should it go wrong including delivery back and forth and its a heavy item. As the machine is hired out I probably wouldn't have got a new one meaning it was more likely to break down.

There were loads of other sneaky little add ons like the quotes don't include VAT and there was some kind of yearly service charge.

When I added up what I actually spend at the post office compared with what that would cost it was going to be twice as expensive to use the machine.

Anyway Im not saying what you have been offered was the same as what I was offered but please make sure you look right into it and read everything on the contract as their sums very rarely work out to the same as you might make them.

luv Jen

[Emsickle]

We use Smartstamp atm - have imported our logo etc and its so easy, plus I can just pop the post in the post box and not have to worry (as long as it fits of course lol). Trying to research franking, and it seems more hassle than its worth, especially if working from home. The set up is absolutely huge and no good for a home office. The monthly charges in comparison to Smartstamp are extremely pricey so I don't think I can see any massive benefits in it. I think I may stick with Smartstamp and let Pitney Bowes know that I'm not interested.

Thanks ladies.

[BellaMiller]

I was contacted by Pit ney too a while ago - I went and searched ukbf and the horror stories there put me right off!

[BellaMiller]

Smartstamp - is this also OK for Proof of Postage?

[baby-bean]

I'm super lucky atm because I can see the PO from my house, so I just do everything there, but we're moving in a few weeks and I'm wondering if there might be a better way. Does smart stamp mean you can just drop off your parcels, or do you still have to queue?