While most of you know this already, it warrants mentioning that if you have sold on Amazon, you might have found it frustrating how Amazon has dealt with shipping in the past. When I first started on Amazon, you sold something, you got the infamous "Sold! Ship Now!" email and you discover in the email who the buyer was, address, email, item, and cost and what you will receive. This was standard with Amazon for almost their entire third party history.

As privacy issues became more and more of a concern for Amazon, they removed any information about the buyer from the email so that you had to log into the account to learn who the buyer was, in which case, you had to copy and paste, or copy the information either onto the package or into the online shipping company that you use. This was somewhat frustrating due to the fact that when a package goes missing, the seller was responsible for proof of shipping. Proof of shipping was the one single means that gave USPS reason to raise Delivery Confirmation from about .45 cents to what it is now - a whopping .90 cents! Yes, ninety cents is not a lot for one package, but when you are bringing up 20 packages every day, it amounts to nearly $20.00 extra a day.

Online stamp and shipping company made this more accessible by making it .15 cents, but then a few years ago raised it to .19 cents. Still reasonable and cheap comparatively speaking. Even USPS keeps the costs low when printing online and is even free delivery confirmation when you purchase Priority.

Less than a year ago, Amazon announced that soon everyone will have to confirm that they have shipped the item in order to get paid. This suddenly became a thorn as it would prolong the payment. On the other hand, it seemed a more secure way to let customers know that an item was shipped. Within this, you let the buyer know how it was shipped and if you had a delivery confirmation, or some tracking number, you could insert the number which would also be emailed to the buyer.

Amazon's move to this method saved sellers on sending emails with said information and allowed an easier flow of managing time and inventory. Ultimately, it proved a wise decision. Still, problems were cropping up for buyers as sellers would be dispatching emails of shipping notifications, but not dispatching the products - at least, perhaps, not at the time the email was sent. And still, many sellers, especially among some of the larger sellers, do not use delivery confirmation to profit on the shipping. 

With seemingly no or little announcement from Amazon, they have now implemented a shipping service directly into their seller central. This was probably they best thing they have done in a long time and I am not sure what took them so long. Now you can sell something and print directly online which they have implemented the service used by Stamps.com. Now there is no copy and pasting, no loading delivery confirmation numbers, and no need for outside services. This should have been there about 5 years ago!

There is only one little minus to the whole experience, and somewhat understandable, but its not a terrible cost. Those that do not have an existing Stamps.com account is subject to a .07 cent fee for every label you print. If you have a Stamps.com account, this is waved and you pay what you would otherwise with convenience.

With the minor fees, the convenience factor outweighs it by a long shot! It gives the seller up-front accountability and tracking info before the buyer can question its proof of delivery. For the shadiest of sellers, even to print out labels without a product would be an arrogant practice! I say this is a win for Amazon and a much needed service on their part.