Online sellers who rely on Stamps.com to manage shipping now have a choice beyond USPS postage. Stamps.com is opening its platform to USPS rival UPS.
Stamps.com had made big news in February when its CEO Ken McBride said he no longer saw an exclusive partnership with the USPS as the right strategy for the company. Today that strategy of expansion was put in motion.
Stamps.com’s customer base of over 740,000 shippers will have access to UPS shipping rates with discounts of up to 55 percent off daily rates, including various waived surcharges. “Stamps.com customers will have seamless UPS connectivity for ecommerce fully integrated within their familiar Stamps.com platforms.”
UPS also announced it’s working on additional collaborations with ecommerce companies that specialize in demand generation, order management, web store hosting, shipping and returns:
“The UPS Digital Access Program helps e-commerce platforms provide a comprehensive suite of order management, fulfilment and delivery services to simplify logistics complexity. This gives SMBs the opportunity to provide the same high-quality customer experience as large e-commerce companies.”
See the full UPS Press Release.
Update 10/21/2019: We’ve confirmed that the new rates will be available in 5 of the Stamps.com properties: ShipStation, ShippingEasy, ShipWorks, Stamps.com and Endicia. (Metapack will not have these rates since their customer base is made up of very large brands and retailers.)
While most of the other Stamps.com platforms already offered UPS shipping options, the discounts offered through the new program should be significantly larger than small- and medium-sized businesses currently receive.
HMMm. I wonder if shipstation will offer UPS in the near future now that stamps has UPS.