Clarification on Stamps.com Program for eBay Sellers

[eBayNews]

I wrote about Stamps.com new program for eBay sellers in Wednesday's AuctionBytes Newsflash newsletter (link), and received some questions from readers. I reached out to Eric Nash, Stamp.com's Director of Online Marketing, for some answers.

There appears to be some confusion because, 1) the program is only for sellers who use a unique URL to see the free eBay offer; and 2) It is only for items sold through your eBay webstore. If you want to use Stamp.com's free eBay program, use this URL: Stamps.com/welcome/custom/ebay (link).

Here the full explanation from Eric:

Our new eBay program is 100% free (monthly subscription is free, you still have to pay for postage) and will remain free for the consumer. The program is limited to shipping goods sold through your eBay webstore however - customers won't be able to utilize the other software features such as printing postage on envelopes, importing data from Amazon, Yahoo!Stores, Shopping Carts, etc. To get access to the other features, they'll need to upgrade to a paid subscription account.

I think the problem your reader described is due to the fact the customer needs to go through a unique URL to see this free eBay offer. eBay sellers are hearing about the offer, going to our home page and only seeing our regular subscription offer which offers the 4 week no-risk trial. On our regular $15.99 per month program, we do charge you for the first month if you do not cancel the service during the 4 week no-risk trial. (People often get "no-risk" confused with "free.")

But the new eBay program will be free to eBay sellers who sign-up on the designated link. We possibly could adjust the program in the future, but anybody who signed up would be able to continue the service for free.

There are two links to see the new eBay program (either link will work):

http://www.stamps.com/ebayfree1 (link)
http://www.stamps.com/welcome/custom/ebay/ (link)

When a customer signs-up, they will see a credit card form - this is for postage purchases only. As long as the sign-up is via the link(s) above, they will not be charged the monthly Stamps.com subscription fee.

Some cool features that Stamps.com offers eBay sellers:
- Ability to print First Class Mail International
- Send all sizes of Priority Mail Flat Rate
- Get 10% off package insurance
- Insure packages up to $2500
- Batch printing up to 1000 labels at a time