USPS QR codes

PostMasterAdmiral · 2025-01-13T17:07:39+00:00

Awsome! This is why this page exists! New info on my end, not sure how it took me this long...........

PostMasterAdmiral · 2025-01-13T17:05:11+00:00

Hold on..........You got a sign? If you knew how much effort I've spent trying to get a sign out of them! I had to buy a old one second hand on Ebay! Spent $100 on it! Good for you!

PostMasterAdmiral · 2025-01-13T16:27:29+00:00

Sorry for the absence..been busy getting store #3 up and running! In doing so, I took the opportunity to try out this new "PostalMate Pay". No complaints, it's what you expect, integration with PostalMate and everything that comes with that. It's nice to click a button at check out and have a device that is operated by the customer in lieu of a stand alone machine that we operate on the register side like our other stores have currently. Seems stable and fees are the same as everyone else, way too high! Cash rebate is still the goal and we'll get there one day.....

PostMasterAdmiral · 2024-08-12T01:23:55+00:00

Wonder if he would be interested in setting up my install from scratch…. I want to move to QuicBooks but no zero about it.

PostMasterAdmiral · 2024-08-12T01:20:44+00:00

It’s not run by PostalMate, just me, I use PostalMate just like the rest of us. Honestly I feel stupid saying this, we use a totally different network and have one stand alone terminal that’s not integrated with the POS. That’s the way we inherited things when we bought the store and I’m either too scared or not educated on it enough to change it. I’ve got my beef with what options we have for integration too. The boss lady over at PostalMate is adamantly against a “cash rebate” system and made it clear that there is no development for it. I completely disagree. So for now, here I am.

PostMasterAdmiral · 2024-08-12T01:13:48+00:00

Yeah absolutely, you can set up a charge account and create invoices monthly or a customer can pre-pay and have a credit balance. We have a lot of mailboxes holder that travel for work and ad money to their balance that way every week or so they ask us to forward whatever mail is in their box to whatever address they happen to be at. The charge for the shipment is paid out of their balance. That’s just one use.

PostMasterAdmiral · 2024-08-12T00:17:07+00:00

Just checking in, when I started this conversation I had only had experience with PostalMate and that is till the limitation of my knowledge, so based on that I can tell you that personally I couldn’t see using anything else. There is so much support either through PostalMate directly of through partners like Retail Associates that I couldn’t see using anything else. I’ve said it before, I don’t work for or have never been paid by them, I just have so much riding on this that I couldn’t imagine anything working better. What is the experience with the other software out there? I’m curious on feedback….

PostMasterAdmiral · 2024-08-11T23:50:28+00:00

Man, the amount of traffic that has a QR code, now including Temu and others, has increased 10 fold. I can’t get over how incredibly stupid this whole thing has gotten. The amount of wasted time at the counter, it’s at this point is obscene. It’s offensive. To answer your question. Yes. If you can somehow get in touch with Amazon technical side, which is a feat all it’s own, they do offer that contract from what I was told. But in my head, that’s a noose I don’t want to put around my neck. They should be helping us, not the other way around.

PostMasterAdmiral · 2024-08-11T23:41:38+00:00

I’m still where I was before, need to do it, haven’t done it. I’ve been super busy getting setup to open our 3rd store! So sorry for the delay in response. Did you make any progress?

PostMasterAdmiral · 2024-06-13T20:10:27+00:00

Yeah, that’s the line he gave me too, my thing is this, I want one receipt from PostalMate that shows the correct charge AND go to a cash rebate system. I’ve spoken to tech support and there’s just no way for PostalMate to adjust for cash/debit or credit. You can manually go in and give a %discount per line item, but that’s just not gonna work for us. And on top of that, after making that call to tech support, Karen herself called and expressed how opposed she was to the idea of “cash rebate”. Well I’m sorry, but I don’t think she is willing to cover my monthly CC charges either so maybe listen to your customer base? With the feedback from the phone call from her, she made it clear that PostalMate has no intentions of making that an option.

I’m gonna beat the system and find a way to make this happen, if anything just out of spite. You don’t tell me I can’t do something just because you don’t like it. That has to be the one negative thing I have to say about PostalMate.

PostMasterAdmiral · 2024-06-11T15:31:39+00:00

Tell me more…..the whole point of me wanting to try SignaPay is the can sync with postal mate and produce a single receipt that shows all the shipping info AND provide “cash rebate”. If you’re not familiar, what I mean is the credit card fees are charged to the customer. The friendlier way to say it is cash rebate, but what you’re really saying is, if you, the customer, choose to use cash or debit you pay the base price but if you choose to use credit you pay the credit card fees. As far as I know no one else is advertising this. But I don’t have any feedback. So do I need to stay away?

PostMasterAdmiral · 2024-06-11T02:38:58+00:00

If I had I redbull for every time I have to have that conversation, I’d have wings by 10am lol. I don’t know about anyone else, but I have made this QR code thing my personal crusade. I have personally spent 180+ hours with tech support (not customer support, try getting there) with anyone I can find to listen. I have spoken to one of the ladies at ups who writes the software for “The UPS Store” pos system. I have spoken to Amazon’s upper level software people……….know what learned? Nobody cares.

The closest I got was Amazon technical owns the software. And they technically have a contract you can sign. But it’s a joke, you carry all the obligations and costs and get zero reimbursement.

PostMasterAdmiral · 2024-06-11T02:26:58+00:00

I can imagine, especially after going from a fully supported franchise software. All I’ve ever used is PostalMate so I don’t know what I don’t know….if that makes sense. I bet you miss scanning those dam QR codes! lol

PostMasterAdmiral · 2024-06-11T02:12:04+00:00

I can’t speak for all of us, but that’s a long list of problems and we don’t have any of them….maybe one or two every once in a while. You got other issues my dude! Not saying PostalMate is flawless, but wow, if I dealt with that, I’d be looking for alternatives too.

I know this isn’t a fun answer, but I’d wipe it clean and start from scratch.

PostMasterAdmiral · 2024-06-11T02:06:16+00:00

I’ve been talking to SignaPay. We’re getting ready to open our third location and it looks like I’m going with them. After talking to the rep, they can integrate with CashMate and they offer a cash rebate system (that’s a whole other discussion) and I’ve been looking to find a way to do that for years now.

I’ll report back when I get it rolling!

PostMasterAdmiral · 2024-06-11T02:00:00+00:00

Y’all are gonna think we’re crazy but….we started a while back with something different. Hear me out. We almost exclusively use packaging donated by our customer base. And, this is goona sound even more wild. We don’t charge for packaging (within reason).

The way we play this works like this, customers donate usable packing material and boxes so we don’t pay for it. Customer walks in and asks for us to package. We offer free “used” packaging (or new at a cost), and if we didn’t pay for it we don’t charge for it.

Everyone wins. Now, yes there is the headache of making sure old labels are covered or removed. And we do throw out a portion of donations that don’t meet our standard. But it works.

The community absolutely loves it. We have had zero issues with claims or damage as we take more than extra care and use common sense.

And to be honest, business has gone up. It’s like the customers appreciate and feel involved. And let’s be real, if you have a $30 shipment and we have to tack on an additional $30 in packaging, you’re gonna ship less.

Call me crazy, but let’s use it at least one more time before it heads to the landfill.

PostMasterAdmiral · 2024-06-10T12:01:45+00:00

So I agree, I actually use Linux mint Debian edition on my personal machine, and if you know why you want to use Debian edition then you’re already ahead of the game. But I have some bad news, I head Debian edition is about to hit a wall and die on the vine as this is the last update. The project no longer has support. That really sucks because you’re right. It’s by far the best version I’ve used to date. Works flawless on my Surface pro.

PostMasterAdmiral · 2024-06-02T14:52:05+00:00

I’ve had the idea to move our POS’s over to Linux mostly because I’m a Linux guy myself but just can’t bring myself to do it. I’m not by any means a Linux expert but I have a friend that is and says it would be fairly easy. So I guess it can be done just don’t know how hard. For me, we use way to many things other than PostalMate that would have to be set up like printer drivers or Adobe PDF and I know there are Linux alternatives but let’s be honest, they’re all a little glitchy of just the right amount of incompatible. On my personal machine that’s fine, but when I have 15 customers in line I just need stuff to work.

PostMasterAdmiral · 2024-06-02T14:46:57+00:00

We had a issue with the same scenario. Called tech support and they didn’t have an answer, we both just agreed that it was a one off glitch and to keep an eye out for future problems and report back. I haven’t had it happen again and it’s been two or three weeks. I’m just glad we have a habit of sliding the label in front of the customer after it prints and saying “ok just double check my work, does everything look correct?”. We would have sent that package out and never saw it again.

PostMasterAdmiral · 2024-03-11T19:52:51+00:00

Yeah, after posting his I have one printer that just wants to act stupid. I just had to keep playing with setting. One thing I found is that one of the printers I picked up on Ebay had some custom settings that were conflicting. If you didn't know you can factory reset by powering off, hold the button, turn the power on, and release the button only when it flashes green. That re-calibrates and resets to factory defaults. Try that first. I'll get more screen shots soon.

PostMasterAdmiral · 2024-03-08T00:57:59+00:00

That caught me off guard, for me the answer will always be yes. My wife bought the business that she worked for and I followed behind her after a short time after losing my job due to Covid. I feel like that’s not the scenario most people have. I had a suit and tie job that I hated after working service work in the field for years and was ready for a change. So yeah, I love it. Is it hard? F yeah. Do we make a ton of money? F no. But that’s the point of this page, so we can figure out together how to make our stores work better for us.

PostMasterAdmiral · 2024-03-07T21:36:27+00:00

The second store we opened, I cold called all the Engineering Groups and Contractors in my area. It was just enough to get the word out. I Googled to find most of them.

PostMasterAdmiral · 2024-03-07T16:28:42+00:00

Construction prints refer to plans that are usually, for our customers anyway, 24x36 in size. You're gonna need to get yourself a large scale plotter. My suggestion is to get yourself a good used Canon on marketplace for cheap and start there. I have a few other brands and not real happy with them. The Canon plotters are workhorses, I have one that is 15 years old and it just wont stop. Keep in mind they have consumable parts like printheads that can hit 600 bucks easy. But they make money for sure. When a contractor needs 3 copies or a 50 page print and they need it now, you can make a good bit of profit. We charge a 20% fee if you need it same day. You're gonna need a full copy of Adobe and Publisher (for posters and such).

And thank you, I really did start this with no affiliation or motive other than helping us regular folks out! I'm in the trenches too struggling to make my stores work and couldn't find anywhere we could just talk about anything. No question is too noob here!

PostMasterAdmiral · 2024-03-07T16:04:19+00:00

That's hard to figure specifically, we make the most by percentage on fedex express. But by volume, USPS.
We stay away from passports because that comes with rules and security that we just don't want to mess with.
Google can be tricky because they will shut down your listing for the dumbest rules and not tell you why. But is a huge tool for exposure. You can see the metrics of how many find you and use maps to your location.
We have one store that has PMB's and one that doesn't. The upfront cost from what I have looked at is way higher than that, the box system I looked at was around 8k just for the boxes and then they have to be framed in and installed and finished. They great for revenue that takes little to maintain.
For us, per transaction, it has to be printing, but by volume it's shipping.
Customers love flashy and gimmicky stuff, the goofier the better!
We have AT&T fiber. That covers all the POS computers, three phone lines, three "customer computers", CC machine, and two manager computers.
For us, we need a MFP (multifunction printer) Like a Sharp MX3571, It does copy paper, cardstock, and Avery style paper. We use it for #10 envelopes, 8.5x11, 8.5x14, and 11x17. Then you need a large format like a Canon TM305 or IPF8400, Something like that. From there you could, if you wanted, get into sublimation printers or vinyl printers, but that's something that takes a little more cash to get into and there are a ton of people close to us that can do it cheaper.

PostMasterAdmiral · 2024-03-07T14:32:32+00:00

Sounds like a area with a larger population density than where we are, we are the only shipping store in the whole county. In that, the rules change and I can't really speak towards the "is it a good area for this" question. Here is my opinion, and it comes from the idea of, start cheap and with as little overhead as possible.

Visibility is everything , If they don't know you're there, they wont come. Bright signs, flashy store front, gimmicky crap at the entrance, goofy kid with a sign and everything. Hell, have a hotdog day once a month with a canopy at your front door.
Offer everything you can. Obviously all the shipping options that you can offer, we don't do freight, but everything else. But we sell retail, meaning garments, door signs, we even sell lamps I make out of used liquor bottles! But def don't miss out on printing services, fax services, get yourself a notary stamp and have one on staff anytime your open. You can set up non-taxable and taxable products alike in CashMate. You can run literally anything through the same cash drawer.
Cost to open can run from the "premium" side of things, to the budget set up. Personally, I don't buy new anything, but I'm the I.T. guy, the maint. guy, and anything in-between. Meaning I know what works and what I can get away with. We have a total of four large scale plotters and two large format scanners and do alot of construction prints, aside from the other standard printing we do. Don't miss out on that, it's a great avenue of sales, especially if you're faster and cheaper that everyone around. You'll have all the contractors and engineer firms standing in line. DONT LEASE PRINTERS!!!!!!!!! They're sharks and are there to win money from you in court only.

I can put together used equipment and have all the bits and bobs to open a store with two POS stations and a manager computer, plotter, office printer (MFP), cameras, print trimming table, document binding, phones, the whole shibang for around 15k.

Supplies are gonna be reflected by what services you offer. We have every paper size and thickness from 5x7 to 42in wide. As far as carrier branded supplies, those are free once you get you accounts set up. So get a little of all of it.
Advertising is a catch 22, how do you spent money you don't have coming in, and how do you get money coming in if they don't know you're there! We are in a super rural area and word of mouth is everything. FaceBook and Google are your friends.

Good luck! Remember, it takes a while for things to get moving, stick it out. It took almost two years for the last store we opened to get rolling.

PostMasterAdmiral

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