postal mailing business

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Frame Lady

CGF II, Certified Grumble Framer Level 2
Joined
Oct 7, 2003
Posts
407
Loc
Seattle, Washington
Does anyone know of a forum like the The Grumble that pertains to the package shipping business. I would like to open a business within our store for packaging and mailing but want to do research on such a business first.

I have checked the internet with dismal results, part of the problem is subject matter, i.e., shipping, packaging, postal etc. Trying all three nets a ton of retail businesses for online information but I can not seem to find a forum like ours, or trade magazines to read, etc. I have tried to talk to a few other businesses but they are not willing to talk to me. UPS owns most of everything around me and my customers are repeatedly asking me to package and ship for them. Since my square footage is greater than my income for sq. ft. I thought this might be a natural shoe-in secondary business.

Any help is greatly appreciated and HAPPY NEW YEAR,

Lynn
 
If you know absolutely nothing about the packaging and shipping business, perhaps a franchise would be worth checking into.
 
Is there a Mailbox Unlimited or other franchise in your area? Maybe you could go in and ask them if they know of a forum. After all word of mouth is how I found this forum!

Barring that I think UPS has outlets that pack and ship. Talk ith someone who works there, I've also seen franchise mags that list franchises to buy.

Or contact SCORE. They seem to know a lot and have great contacts for you to get a hold of.
 
Lynn,

You may have the square footage....but are you sure you have the time to put into this second business? I have a good friend who runs a Packaging Store franchise, and this fellow puts in some mightly long days, especially leading up to Christmas.

Click on the link above to learn more. I think this franchise might be for you.

John
 
As for a "Shoe in" secondary business, I wouldn't be too sure, especially in a big city like Seattle where I am sure there are many pack and ship businesses.

Get an UPS account and offer shipping as a service so you can see what you need. If it looks like something that you would like to do, then you better look at a franchise.
 
Get a Fedex account as well so you can get the stuff there without it getting broken.
Build into this second business slowly. You will know soon enough whether you can handle it or not.

Put a sign in the window that you do shipping. I'm sure you will get people in.
 
I have done some research on opening a packaging/shipping business, as I to have unused space. You can look at these sites: www.visionallance.com, and also www.AMPC.org which is an association ,that has an online forum, but I think you have to pay to join. There is also franchises that will set up the store & train. They do not charge ongoing (royalty)fees. The store is yours to run. Hope this helps.
 
Don't you need to have a space to store all the needed supplies to package as well? Just the boxes alone of many different sizes would take up huge amounts of space???
 
The store next to me is a franchise shipping outlet. I posed your question to the manager. This store has a ton of daily traffic that I can see through my window.

The advice he gives is that you should simply open a Fed Ex account for ground or air shipments. He said that they are the best at framed art (they were shipping framed art everyday for an internet business). Most of what they shipped required custom packaging that they would prepare as needed. He tells me that even with the constant traffic daily, there is nothing left over for the owner after expenses.

This will be a full time job if you offer a full service shipping store and will leave no time for framing if you do the work or no real profit if you hire a full time employee.

I used to ship 3000+ packages per year for a framing contract that I had and don't see any reason to offer this service to anyone other than your framing clients.

The packaging store manager said to charge 2.5 times the rate you are charged for shipping (typical for that industry) and charge plenty for the packaging.
 
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