Lawndale Tribune
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The Weekly Newspaper of Lawndale
Herald Publications - Inglewood, Hawthorne, Lawndale, El Segundo, Torrance & Manhattan Beach Community Newspapers Since 1911 - Circulation 30,000 - Readership 60,000 (310) 322-1830 - December 14, 2017
Self-Serve Postage Company Makes Changes
By Rob McCarthy
late, especially on a Monday following a busy
Dan Frazier makes a living off current
sales weekend, has disastrous consequences for
affairs, selling political bumper stickers and
a small store like his. “It can be a huge misstep
T-shirts from a small online store that runs 24
for an Amazon seller,” he said.
hours a day and on weekends. Being affiliated
Stamps.com is a competitor in the Internetbased
with Amazon, his company has tight shipping
postage service business. It contracts
deadlines to meet, and Mondays are crucial
with the U.S. Postal Service to sell stamps and
to fulfilling customer orders and having them
postage labels for letters and packages. The
out that day.
company targets its self-printing services to
Frazier says that he almost missed the promised
small businesses and home offices, according
ship date after some weekend sales because the
to its website.
postage company he uses to print stamps was
Stamps.com spokesman Eric Nash said the
offline for hours on a busy Monday recently.
website outage in mid-October that panicked its
Stamps.com, based in El Segundo, experienced
customers was due to heavier-than-expected Web
a prolonged website outage that lasted much
traffic on that Monday, close to Halloween when
longer than expected.
sales by online retailers spike. “Staff observed a
Retailers and the small businesses that use the
huge surge of unusual traffic that took us some
self-printing postage company logged complaints
time to identify, isolate and reroute to another
on social media and expressed their frustration
data center,” said Nash, the senior director of
that the company told them the service would
online marketing. He said the company has since
be restored in 30 minutes. “This service was
fixed the problem so that surges in customer
down for four or five hours today, maybe more,”
traffic won’t take down the website.
Frazier wrote in an email. “This is not the first
So far, the U.S. Postal Service vendor has
time this has happened, though it is the longest
made good on its promise to improve the
outage that I am aware of.”
reliability of its site. Retailers and business
Amazon sellers have a two-day deadline to
customers on social media reported very few
mail certain consumer products, according to
problems in the six weeks following the Monday
a company spokeswoman contacted for this
meltdown. Judging by the few complaints on
story. She referred to a seller agreement posted
its blog site and Facebook page, Stamps.com
online that reads, “Sellers are expected to ship
is doing better.
all orders as specified on the offer; however,
Customers were irritated with the company
Amazon requires sellers to ship all Books,
back in October for not telling them the outage
Music, Video, and DVD … products within
wouldn’t be restored quickly. A message posted
two business days of receiving the order from
on Stamps.com estimated the service outage
Amazon.” Merchants who fail to meet Amazon’s
would be resolved in 30 minutes. However,
shipping requirement can be suspended from the
as the downtime reached five hours, retailers
world’s largest online retail site, and have their
were getting nervous. And they were ticked off,
accounts frozen. Frazier had it happen to him
too. “If there is issue please let all of us know
once when an employee suddenly quit on him.
immediately instead of chicken out! So we will
Cyber Monday--the Super Bowl of
not waste our time to figure out what’s going
e-commerce--had Frazier and other Stamps.
on!” one Facebook user wrote on October 17.
com customers singing a happy holiday tune.
Another person asked, “Are you guys down?”
Printers were humming, turning out shipping
An oft-repeated complaint on social media,
labels for packages and stamps for envelopes.
including the company’s Facebook page, was
Stamps.com customers pay a monthly $15.99
that information about the October outage was
fee, which enables retailers and small businesses
never updated. Without service, some customers-
to print stamps and shipping labels from their
-especially on the East Coast--decided they
offices. It’s a convenient service for a small
couldn’t wait any longer. Several customers said
business owner like Frazier, who otherwise
on Facebook that they too needed information.
would be making trips to the local post office
“Monday and it is not working for me either.
in Flagstaff, Arizona where he’s based.
Not a good day to be down,” wrote a woman
The danger for him is when his packages don’t
who was dealing with stress and deadlines for
go out on time, Amazon can suspend him and
getting out packages in the mail. Another wrote
freeze his account, according to Frazier. Being
at midmorning on October 16 that she was in
the dark about when--or if--the service would
be restored. “Down and so much to ship,” her
post read.
Stamps.com last week promised to do a
better job of communicating to customers when
service goes down. It responded to the flood
of complaints that its Web application and
communication to customers need improvement
by creating an system-status page on its website.
Rolled out on December 5, the page shows if the
postage-print services are running. The feature
will offer real-time information, thus avoiding
what happened in October when customers had
to rely on old information about when service
would be restored. The new page promised, “If
there are any interruptions in service, a note
will be posted here.”
Frazier is happy with the changes and said
he’ll remain a customer despite the website
hiccups that sometimes make it impossible for
him and his lone employee to print postage
before the end of the business day. “This is so
much simpler than going to the post office,”
explained Frazier, who decided not to switch
companies.
Stamps.com says it was the first company
to be licensed by the U.S. Postal Service for
home- and office-based printing of postage, but
it has got competition. Indicia, ShippingWorks
and ShipEasy are among the companies that
also sell self-printing postage to business and
retailers in the U.S. and Canada.
Online companies have a responsibility to
be honest and timely with information about
technical problems that interfere with normal
business operations, says associate professor
Nelson Granados at Pepperdine University.
Customers are more interested in knowing when
service will be restored than in any technical talk.
“The best approach is to be forthcoming to
clients upfront,” said Granados, who teaches
about information systems and is director of
the Center for Applied Research at the Malibu
campus. What sets off customers is silence
or, in the case of Stamps.com, leaving an old
message on a customer service phone line
up on the website. “The best approach is to
be transparent,” Granados said, to reduce the
backlash from nervous and irate clients.
The website Isitdownright now.com can reveal
if a site is working or whether the client’s
computer system is the problem. It’s also a
place to view comments left by customers
about technical issues and any suggestions. •
Certified & Licensed
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Weekend
Forecast
Friday
Sunny
75˚/62˚
Saturday
Partly
Cloudy
73˚/61˚
Sunday
Sunny
72˚/61˚
Students Receive a New Vision
Last week, 128 students at Anderson Elementary School and 166 students at Rogers Middle School received a free pair of eyeglasses resulting from a partnership between Vision to Learn and the Lawndale
Rotary Club. Several students received their very first pair of eyeglasses and were relieved to see the world in a whole new light. Photo Provided by Lawndale Elementary School District