Everything is always bigger during the holidays: Lots of joy, louder music, more colors, and bigger discounts. And for pack and ship centers, the holidays mean significantly increased demand for shipping services. 

While higher demand is great, especially for your profit margin, it still doesn’t hurt to be prepared. This year, our biggest peak season tip is to install one (or several) self-service shipping kiosks.

What is a Self-Service Shipping Kiosk?

A postage kiosk is a full-service shipping solution that allows customers to handle their shipping needs independently. The kiosk is a compact machine with a touchscreen display, a thermal printer, and a compliant weighing scale. 

The Anytime Postage kiosk handles both domestic and international shipping of mail and parcels, and the kiosk can be configured to offer any carrier of your choice as long as their API allows it. More than 100 carriers can be integrated with the kiosk, allowing you to offer shipping services that best fit your customers’ needs. 

Aside from the modern features, the kiosk is also easy to use and will satisfy your customers, especially those in a hurry. Here’s a quick rundown on how to use an Anytime Postage kiosk:

1. Your customer taps the touchscreen to wake it up.

2. They weigh their mail or parcel on the scale.

3. They add the sender and recipient details, and the dimensions of their mail.

4. They choose a carrier and pay via debit, credit card, or QR code.

5. The kiosk prints the shipping label. The customer attaches the label, then bring their parcel to your staff or drop it at a designated box.

Easy-peasy and doesn’t require staff assistance. 

The kiosk is a smart additional service that adds value to your business, and proves especially useful during the holiday surge. 

Shipping Peak Season Tips: Ways that Anytime Postage Helps

Supplement Staffing with a Self-Service Kiosk 

Shipping demand surges around the holidays, which is good for your business. But it’s always a frantic time. You often have to deal with staffing issues, demanding customers, and the challenges that arise from typical holiday mailstream congestion. 

One foolproof tip is to have an Anytime Postage kiosk in your store. A shipping kiosk eases the load and frees up your staff, especially during the seasonal surge of shipping. Your customers can handle shipping holiday cards and gifts independently via the kiosk, allowing your store to smoothly generate revenue without your customers waiting in line. 

Anytime Postage kiosks in your store mean more sales for you, fewer demands on your staff, and is the perfect solution to meet holiday shipping volume.

Reduce Lines and Enjoy Happier Customers

Picture this: Long lines that wind outside your store’s door, tired customers carrying packages wrapped in festive paper, sighs and grumbles about the long wait, and your staff trying to stay calm in the brewing storm. 

This is a common situation in your pack and ship store during the holiday season, and it’s not inconceivable that you could lose business because some customers don’t like to wait.

The good news is an Anytime Postage kiosk is about to bring added efficiency and profit to your store. Display one or several in your lobby so customers can handle shipping errands independently. They walk in, head over to an Anytime Postage kiosk, do what they need to, and be done in just a couple of minutes. No delays. No waiting in line.

Ensure Fewer Shipping Errors

A busy store equals more distractions and more chances of errors. And during the holidays, errors can mean unpleasant things — gifts not delivered on time, missing packages, holiday cards arriving at the wrong place, or festive decor arriving as late as January. Not good for Yelp reviews, that’s for sure.

Fortunately, you have Anytime Postage in your pack and ship store, which practically eliminates shipping errors. The address fields autofill information of accepted and known locations, and each shipping label is created using a thermal printer, avoiding smudges and other common printing mistakes.  

How to Offer Anytime Postage Self-Service Shipping In Your Store

At Anytime Postage, we ensure that purchasing and installing a kiosk is a seamless process. 

Purchase Process:

Simply pop over to our website and select a kiosk to purchase. Set the quantity and check out right on the website. Our team will then contact you directly to assist you with kiosk configuration and answer any questions you may have. 

Installation:

An Anytime Postage kiosk is ready to serve your customers and help your store meet holiday demand the moment you unpack it from the box. Simply unpack, plug in, good to go. 

Note: Anytime Postage kiosk delivery takes approximately six weeks. We recommend ordering as soon as possible to stay one step ahead of the holiday rush.