Tacoma Goodwill Industries Streamlines Its Shipping Process With USPS^®

Goodwill’s Need

Tacoma Goodwill is a unique, self-supporting 501(c)3 nonprofit that uses donations sold in its 25 stores across a 15-county service area to fund its programs. Goodwill is also a leader in online sales and relies on its Go2 Services, with property management and packaging and assembly operations, to provide additional funding.

Goodwill’s programs help people with disabilities and other barriers to employment get jobs, training, and educational opportunities. Since 1902, Goodwill’s concept of building job skills instead of giving handouts has provided people of all ages and backgrounds with a chance to succeed. Tacoma Goodwill opened in 1921 as the 19th Goodwill in the United States, offering its own job training and placement services.

Endicia’s Solution

When Tacoma Goodwill decided to start listing on ShopGoodwill.com, Endicia became the clear choice for shipping. From the beginning, Endicia worked closely with the developers of ShopGoodwill.com to incorporate U.S. Postal Service^® shipping with the site. Endicia made shipping with the USPS^® much easier.

An Endicia customer since January 2005, Tacoma Goodwill processes up to 150 packages per day from 3 shipping stations equipped with Zebra thermal printers. Tacoma Goodwill uses mostly Priority Mail^® for clothing, collectibles, musical instruments, and antiques. They use USPS^® Media Mail for books, tapes, movies, and records. In total, USPS^® shipping accounts for almost 99% of its fulfillment volume.

Tacoma Goodwill takes advantage of the Stealth Postage feature to hide postage amounts from their shipping labels. The integrated, paperless Endicia Parcel Insurance is applied on nearly all of their valuable packages. Endicia's pre-filled customs forms for International shipments allow them to support the global reach of their online sales. Tacoma Goodwill also uses Bulk Acceptance Scan forms so that the U.S. Postal Service carrier can easily accept all the day's packages with one scan when the shipments are picked up.

Recently, Tacoma Goodwill separated the book division out to another facility with a second Endicia account and went shopping for more printers. By supporting industry-standard 4"x6" thermal label printers, Endicia allows Tacoma Goodwill to use low-cost commodity labels, an important consideration for a non-profit organization with an eye on the bottom line.

With the great support it receives from Endicia, the features of Endicia software, the seamless integration with ShopGoodwill.com, and the ease-of-use of the overall fulfillment solution, Goodwill staff have already recommended Endicia to other organizations and Goodwill locations.