As I was happily printing my labels today for my sold [tag]eBay [/tag]items, I ran out of labels. I love my label printer. It's a Pitney-Bowes LPS-1, and it takes a 100 foot long X 2 3/7 inch continuous roll of label material. When you print a label through [tag]PayPal[/tag], it pops out a nice thin label (yes, I said two and three sevenths of an inch wide) about six inches long that is perfect for a shipping tube.
[tag]Pitney Bowes[/tag] should know better
Pitney Bowes is a company with an interesting history. They've been around for over a hundred years dealing with postage. You may remember the old [tag]postage[/tag] meters in offices years ago, they were likely Pitney Bowes meters. They tell us themselves, they have over
"3,500 patents in divergent areas such as ticketing, cellular phone payments, laser printing, encryption and mail production, Pitney Bowes consistently ranks among the companies receiving the most new patents every year."
Nice.
Each year I've attended eBay Live!, Pitney Bowes has one of the biggest booths. They pay a LOT to be there with the eBay sellers. In fact, eBay Live! is where I saw my first [tag]LPS-1[/tag] and promptly bought one. In fact, Pitney Bowes provides the engine that drives the postage sellers print via their eBay or PayPal accounts. I like that they want to do business with [tag]online retailers[/tag]. Nevertheless, I feel this company needs some serious help dragging itself into the 21st century.
The problem
As I mentioned earlier, I ran out of label material and didn't have a spare ready. So I went to Staples and Office Depot to look for refills. Just so you know, you can't actually buy the refills for Pitney Bowes LPS-1 printers at these stores. You can though buy the refills for the Brother Model QL-500. This is the exact same printer, but on the spot the label spool sits, there are some little spring-loaded pins. The little "feet" the spool sits on, either push the pins down (for the Brother [tag]QL-500[/tag]) or let the pins stick up through a small hole in the "feet" (LPS-1). Each brand sets these little pins to a certain up or down combination that only lets the printer work with their branded labels. Otherwise it's the exact same product. They just want you to buy their proprietary product. Well, I figured out the difference, and since I can't get the Pitney Bowes product (except on their website -which I'm getting to) I just ground away part of the little "foot" that the spool sits on, allowing the spring-loaded pin to stick up, and everything works fine.
In any case, both office supply stores were out of the product I needed. So, I thought I'd give Pitney Bowes a shot and see what their prices are. They have lowered them since I last looked. So I tried to buy two rolls. Then I'd have a spare when I run out again right? Wrong.
First I had to "register", fine. No, I don't want news on Pitney Bowes products, etc. etc. Then I found my label material. Cool, $14.99 per roll. I'll take two. I typed "2" into the quantity box, and then Proceed to Checkout. I get to checkout, and there's only "1" in the cart. I updated that with "2" and then clicked "Recalculate"... nothing. It would not update, and it didn't tell me why. It just stuck there at "1". Is the stock low? Do I need to know a secret handshake? How do I get this store to let me buy from them? With over 3,500 patents, you'd think PB would have figured this one out. How many sales are they missing per day because of this?
So I went back to the catalog and added other products. They popped into the cart. I tried adding more label material as a second line item. Nope. So I finally gave up. I was pretty irritated though. Maybe I could call... nope, closed. Email? Well, although PB spends thousands of dollars to reach online retailers at eBay Live!, and provide a great service through eBay and PayPal - there's no email address to be found on their site. Just phone numbers - OH and a fax number, that's handy. Just as I was gasping in amazement at this lack of email contact info, an email popped up from Pitney Bowes! They were welcoming me (since I'd just registered).
I looked over my shiny new email for a [tag]customer service[/tag] email address since obviously they do have access to the internet. Here is what I found:
Please note: This e-mail was sent from a notification-only address that cannot accept incoming e-mail. Please do not reply to this message.
Thank you for choosing Pitney Bowes. We look forward to continuing to help you with your business needs in the future.
Nahhh, that's okay.
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