| Two scrappy start-ups built initially to sell postage over the Internet are now racing to provide one-click services that let corporate users instantly compare shipping costs for online orders, taking into account the weight, distance and priority of a shipment.
Stamps.com and E-Stamp Corp., have both recently acquired technology that merges carrier and rate information on a single screen and enables instant orders using the selected carrier, including Federal Express, United Parcel Service and the U.S. Postal Service, as well as most small package and freight carriers. The services can be applied to online and offline orders.
Some 8 billion packages are shipped by businesses each year at an average cost of $16 apiece, for a total of $128 billion. |
