eBay Partners With E-Stamp

(AP)  You're paying your bills, but realize you don't have any stamps. It means either a trip to the grocery store or waiting in a long line at the post office. There is a new e-commerce solution to this annoyance, however.

Internet companies eBay Inc. and E-Stamp Corp. have formed an alliance aimed at boosting consumers' ability to print computerized postage at home.

The Wall Street Journal said that E-Stamp would pay eBay nearly $10 million a year. E-Stamp in 1998 was the first company to let consumers create postage on their personal computers, but it now faces stiff competition from Santa Monica, Calif.-based Stamps.com Inc.

Under the agreement, buyers and sellers at eBay could get discounts on the E-Stamp Internet postage starter kit as well as reduced fees for buying postage online via E-Stamp. The companies said they also plan to offer easy access to E-Stamp's online supply store.

E-Stamps hopes in particular to snare e-Bay users that sell at least $2,000 in goods a month over the auction site and probably need a lot of postage for shipping.

Ordinarily, E-Stamp charges new customers $49 for a starter kit that includes a device that attaches to computers and keeps track of postage purchases. But E-Stamp said it will wave that charge for large eBay customers and offer 50 percent discounts for other eBay users.

E-Stamp also said it will shrink its usual 10 percent fee for eBay users buying more than $250 of postage at a time.

E-Stamp has also formed alliances with America Online, Yahoo!, ExciteHome, Intuit, Microsoft and Compaq.