USPS Gives Green Light for Last Phase of Online Postage Test

Computergram International, May 20, 1999

The two companies that have approval from the US Postal Service to test their internet-based postage systems have got the all- clear to extend their trials to their third and final phase before rolling out their services nationwide later this year.

Stamps.com Inc, which offers a pure internet-based system, and E- Stamp Corp, which uses a combination of its hardware and software both say they will add an additional 1000 small business and SoHo's to the 500 they are already testing their systems with in the Washington DC and San Francisco areas. Both are restricted to those numbers and geographical areas by the USPS, which has trained its staff in those particular areas to use and support the system. This news has come slightly earlier than had been expected - E-Stamp was still talking of phase three starting in a month or two when we spoke with the company earlier this week (05/18/99).

E-Stamp downloads the postage value over the net and stores it in a physical vault attached to the PC, which can be accessed at any time. Stamps.com stores the value on the net in a user's account and they download it each time they wish to print postage value on to an envelope. Both companies enable the printing of the postage from within Microsoft Word and both have marketing deals with America Online Inc.

E-Stamp says AOL's postage center will only open once nationwide approval is given, but it has been acquiring customers since January by offering them discounts and other offers for the forthcoming service. E-Stamp is also touting a recent IDC study that apparently says its hybrid hardware-software approach to online postage is the preferred choice of small business users over a software-only approach, such as that employed by Stamps.com.