Postal Service Tips for Travelers

Tips to Use the USPS Website for Business Needs On the Road

Oct 29, 2007

The US Postal Service now makes life easier - and cheaper - for business travelers. Print your own postage and shipping labels while arranging for free package pickup.

The USPS website's Household page offers lots of business travel-friendly mail options:

How to Conduct Business While Traveling with Help from the USPS -

Print out shipping labels from any printer for express or priority mail, for both national or international mailings.

Pay for your stamps online, immediately, via a bank account debit. You can also buy stamps this way over the phone. The rub - you do have to establish your bank access first. Doing this ahead of time, back at the home office, will save time on the road. Stamps arrive a day later to your address of choice.

Even easier is to simply print out online postage. The USPS website offers links to stamp printing services from Click-N-Ship, eBay, Stamps.com, Endicia and Pitney Bowes Inc (for parcels).

Use the government's free online service to hold all mail when you travel. This is one of the easiest site features to set up. Mail can be held at your local post office for three to ninety days. A "same day holding" service works with requests submitted before 2am Central Time from Monday through Saturday and mail will "resume delivery on the day you specify." Unfortunately some zip codes don't have this service available, so check on yours before you travel if mail holding is a priority.

Just like putting mail on hold, this service is slam dunk easy. Choose between the permanent and temporary options. There is a one dollar fee via credit/debit card to confirm your identity. The Postal Service website warns, "the credit card billing address MUST match the address you are moving from or the address you are moving to." So it's possible to have mail sent to temporary locales if your business lends itself to an extended stay.

Note - even via online service, the postal service will still send those Lowes and Home Depot coupons to your new address. But who can you complain to about junk mail sent by the actual post office?

Another free service, no matter how few or many packages you need to send. The pickup can come to your business, home or even the front desk of your hotel. A "safe location" is all that's specified for domestic carrier pickup - senders need not be present. Specific time pickups, on the other hand, do cost money - around $15, if exact pickup times matter.

There is a video on the USPS website detailing how to use their pickup service. There are a lot of rules for how to use this carrier pickup and what exactly you can send. For one thing, packages must be completely ready to mail. Get familiar with the service rules and regs before any trips.

Priority Mail Flat Rate Boxes (in several sizes) are also free for the ordering, online.

The copyright of the article Postal Service Tips for Travelers in Business Travel Tips is owned by Dan Florio. Permission to republish Postal Service Tips for Travelers in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.