corbing - 12:40 am on Jun 12, 2008 (gmt 0)

For integration, take a look at Dazzle by Endicia. We ship about 40% USPS and 60% UPS and our XML integration with Dazzle is so much cleaner than with UPS. We have different shipping stations for USPS and UPS and the guys doing USPS can easily ship 2-3 packages in the same time as one UPS package. And, it's cheap ($30 or month or something).

As for pickups, as other have said, you just need to make sure that they know it's their job to do a free daily pickup, regardless of how many packages you have. Each state has a USPS Consumer Affairs office that acts as problem solver for the local branches. Find that number and call them. We also have a dedicated account rep at the USPS and they're great to work with. We have a USPS truck that comes by at 4:30 each day, drops off big orange rolling carts and takes our full orange carts. They are separate from our regular postal carrier.