Stamps.com Inc., Los Angeles, the Internet-based postage services provider, said yesterday that revenue from PhotoStamps orders shipped during the fourth quarter totaled $900,000 and gross profit was about $300,000.
In the third quarter of 2004, Stamps.com received U.S. Postal Service authorization to proceed with a market test of PhotoStamps, a form of postage that lets customers include photographs or graphics along with postage.
Stamps.com concluded the market test Sept. 30 with 138,000 sheets, or 2.75 million individual PhotoStamps, ordered and accepted during the 7 1/2-week test. The USPS told Stamps.com to conclude its test and stop taking customer orders for PhotoStamps as of Oct. 1 to allow the agency to review the program.
Late in the third quarter, Stamps.com submitted a formal request to the USPS to continue testing the PhotoStamps service. That request is still under consideration by the USPS.
The postal service was expected to decide the future of the PhotoStamps program within 90 days of Oct. 1. The USPS has yet to issue a determination.
Other fourth-quarter Stamps.com results:
· Total revenue was $11.7 million, up 83 percent versus the same quarter last year.
· Net income of $1.5 million, compared with a net loss of $2.7 million in fourth-quarter 2003.
· Incremental sales and marketing cost related to PhotoStamps was about $100,000.
Stamps.com also said that it expects to release the next major version of its PC Postage software in the second quarter of 2005. Version 5.0 will feature enhancements including an overhauled and improved user interface; enhanced user information on cost versus delivery time; the ability to provide feature-based product differentiation; support for USPS carrier pickup; and enterprise-level reporting and billing capabilities.
Melissa Campanelli covers postal news, CRM and database marketing for DM News and DMNews.com. To keep up with the latest developments in these areas, subscribe to our daily and weekly e-mail newsletters by visiting www.dmnews.com/newsletters
