Mail Manifesting with Bound Printed Matter

When you’re shipping books, there’s no cheaper way to do it than using USPS Bound Printed Matter (BPM). BPM is around $1 cheaper per book than Media Mail. However, unless you’re mailing 300 or more of the same book, you may think you can’t use those rates. That’s where Mail Manifesting comes in. You start by printing identification numbers on the labels. You then account for those numbers on a special report. Once you’ve done this, the USPS will allow you to mix books of different weights and sizes into one bulk mailing. One extra feature of BPM, the USPS now offers free tracking!

On days you don’t have 300 pieces to qualify for the bulk rate, single piece rate on Bound Printed Matter (available for 50 pounds of mail) is still about 50 cents cheaper than Media Mail.

Our Mail Manifesting solution is different than most. Other companies want you to pay a large price up front, and big annual license fees every year. We allow you to pay as you go. Depending on your volume, we can offer a low price per piece, per file processed, or a flat rate per month if your volume justifies it.

There are USPS permit fees and certifications you’ll need, but we guide you through their process to make everything as easy and seamless as possible.

If you have a shipping system, we can probably integrate into it. We’ve been providing this remote mail manifesting solution to book printers, distributors and publishers since 2003. We have our process very optimized and simplified. You export a file to us and within 30 minutes you receive the files and paperwork you need for the USPS. We can also provide (or even post) files with the tracking data for your website. If you don’t have a shipping system, we also offer products to serve that need.

Not sure if BPM will help you? If you send us a simple data file (zip code, weight, ship date), we will perform a free analysis to determine your best shipping option.

We all know, it’s hard to do anything without a computer. A computer can’t do anything without software. That’s where we come in. Whether you need a multi-user order processing and inventory system, or a web page for your coffee shop, we can help you find the best balance between investment and benefit. If an existing program will do what you need, we can locate it for you. If there isn’t a pre-built solution, we can create a custom system to meet your requirements.

One of our newest products is the ShipSys shipping system. This is a suite of programs designed to provide inventory, packing slip and label printing services for small businesses. The customer is able to import files from Amazon, eBay, Half.com, Zencart and other sources. Packing slips and pick lists are printed. As the items are shipped, tracking data is captured for reporting back to the source selling system. It is integrated into our Remote Mail Manifesting system to allow low-cost USPS shipping, but also provides support for tracking of other shipping methods. The system can be as simple as one workstation, or can scale to support as many shipping stations as needed, all tied to a central server.

Of course, we have developed many web pages over the years, which often involved importing and converting data from prior versions. Web pages have covered a variety of genres, including business information and promotion sites, product based eCommerce sites, stock and decorative photography sales. We have also built web-based inventory and process control systems that allow multiple sites to share information, and even allow customer access to relevant data (and prevent unauthorized access to the system, or to other customer’s information).

An example of this was called Job Ticket. It was set up for a direct mail shop. It was built as a web page in order to provide online access to inventory and job ticket information from multiple locations and devices. Customers can be allowed access to see their inventory and job status. Office personnel have access defined by their business role (Production, Administration, etc). In this situation, security was crucial, both to prevent unauthorized access to the system, and to prevent one customer from gaining access to information related to another customer.