New businesses often overlook postage and shipping costs. Beyond the postage and shipping costs, employees spend time stuffing, folding, and addressing envelopes. On top of preparing mail, businesses spend time sorting and processing letters and packages. Shipping costs can account for over a quarter of business expenses.

Below are some tips to help you reduce these costs and increase your business efficiency.

Consider a Postage Meter

Postage meters save on trips to the post office and offer discounts on postage and shipping costs. Some estimates project businesses can save a third of postage costs by leasing or renting a postage meter.

Employees won’t need to spend time sorting mail and taking letters to the post office. On top of the time savings, overall spending on mailing decreases.

Don’t Hand Fold or Stuff Envelopes

Manually folding material and hand inserting them into envelopes is inefficient. Many postage meters have optional inserters that save time on mailing processes. Neopost, for example, can fold up to 26,000 sheets per hour and stud up to 12,000 envelopes per hour.

Folding materials and stuffing envelopes can be extremely time consuming. If you have a postage meter, consider adding an inserter to your machine.

Verify Addresses

Manually checking addresses can be very time consuming. Software can easily replace the time required for employees to verify each address. This software validates addresses on each piece of mail against the USPS change of address database. The database checks for customers who have moved, are incarcerated, are deceased, or have requested “do not mail” from the USPS.

Validating addresses prior to shipping ensures that your mail reaches the right person in an efficient manner and that invoices do not get lost in the mail.

Negotiate with Carriers

As a business owner, you have the ability to negotiate shipping rates with multiple carriers to ensure you are getting the best rates. There are reps responsible for negotiating the best rates for your business. They also are available to answer questions and ease the shipping process for your business.

Check Your Bill

The average shipper overpays their shipping bills by up to 5% due to mistakes made by carriers in the invoicing processes. Make sure to go over your monthly bill carefully once you have the best rates.