Guides

How to open a pack-and-ship store

Sources checked 31 October 2026. General information, not legal advice: rules and program terms change, so confirm with the carrier or your postmaster before you rely on them.

A pack-and-ship store sells shipping, packing and the supplies that go with them to people who walk in with something to send. Most also rent mailboxes and receive packages for their box holders. This guide covers the decisions that come first: what you will sell, how you get access to the carriers, and what has to be behind the counter on day one.

1. Decide what the counter sells

Most stores build on the same core and add services that suit their area:

• Shipping: rating and selling labels for one or more carriers, and accepting prepaid parcels customers drop off.
• Packing and supplies: boxes, fill and tape sold at the counter, and packing done for the customer.
• Mailbox rentals: a street address and package receiving for box holders. Renting boxes that receive mail makes the store a Commercial Mail Receiving Agency (CMRA) with its own USPS rules; see CMRA compliance for mailbox rentals.
• Other walk-in services that bring the same customers back, chosen for the neighborhood.

2. Get access to the carriers

Each national carrier runs its own program for retail shipping stores. They differ in who may join and what they give you, so treat each as a separate application.

UPS: Authorized Shipping Outlet (ASO)

According to Retail Shipping Associates’ program page, an ASO offers UPS’s full line of products to the public. ASO accounts go to the large shipping-store franchise systems through their national contracts. An independent store applies to UPS directly by email, and status is granted by exception, with approval unlikely outside very rural areas that no franchise or existing ASO already covers. The listed requirements include running a pack-and-ship store as your primary business with a retail storefront, regular weekday hours, a calibrated scale that takes at least 100 lb, selling packaging and supplies with packing expertise, providing UPS packaging at no charge, and an account in good standing with UPS.

FedEx: Authorized ShipCenter (FASC)

FedEx describes FASC as an alliance between pack-and-ship retailers and FedEx. You answer a short qualification questionnaire, create a FedEx account if the store is new or changing hands, then submit the store’s profile. FedEx lists discounts on parcels shipped on your FedEx account, drop-off incentive checks, a listing in the FedEx store locator and free marketing materials among the benefits.

USPS: Approved Shipper

The USPS Approved Shipper program makes agreements with existing independent shipping and mailing companies, which sell postal services alongside other carriers’ products. USPS says there is no compensation between the retailer and the Postal Service, that retailers may charge additional fees on mailings, and that participants receive USPS branding rights and signage. The page gives an email address to contact rather than an online application.

You do not need all three to open. With Pack and Kin Studio, USPS labels are bought on our network’s account, so a store can rate and sell USPS, UPS and FedEx without carrier accounts of its own, and link its own UPS or FedEx account later as an add-on pack.

3. Put the counter together

• A shipping scale sized for the parcels you will accept. The UPS program above asks for a calibrated scale rated to at least 100 lb.
• A label printer, usually a 4×6 thermal printer, and a receipt printer for the register.
• Packing space and stock: boxes in common sizes, fill and tape.
• Mailboxes, if you rent them, numbered so each box holder’s address can carry the box number the USPS rules require.
• Software that rings the sale, rates and prints labels across carriers, keeps mailbox records and posts every sale to your books.

4. If you rent mailboxes, register first

Under the USPS Domestic Mail Manual, a business that accepts mail on behalf of others is a CMRA and must register with its postmaster on PS Form 1583-A before it does. Every box holder then signs PS Form 1583. The CMRA guide walks through both.

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