6 Tips for Purchasing Reliable Postal Weighing Scales

Whether you’re handling a small business, postal office or a company shipping department, reliable postal weighing scales are crucial. How do you know which one to choose when there’s so many factors? This blog will provide six tips for selecting the most reliable postal weighing scale for your purpose.

1. Assessing the Necessity of Trade Approval

Postal weighing scales are also known as parcel or shipping scales. They’re mainly for the purpose of weighing packages, crates or pallets before shipping. If you want to determine how much to charge a customer to cover shipping costs, you’ll need a trade approved postal scale. You can legally use trade approved scales to determine prices by weight. This helps guarantee that transactions are financially fair for everyone. Scales and balances in Europe are certified by the European Commission. Approved scales will often feature a sign or sticker that they’re “EC Trade Approved.”

If you plan to use your postal scale to help guarantee each package is the correct weight or to help you estimate how much you will be charged for shipping in general, a trade approved model isn’t necessary.

2. Finding a Suitable Weight Capacity

Step one of browsing for reliable postal weighing scales is to think of the heaviest parcel you’re likely to weigh. This gives you an idea of the capacity you may be looking for, which should be slightly higher than the heaviest item. Having a gap between the capacity you need and the capacity on the scale you purchase acts as a buffer if you introduce a heavier item later, so you’re not at risk of overloading, which could damage the scale.

For example, the heaviest parcel you typically handle may only be about 50kg, but if you’re using a scale with a 75kg capacity, you’ve increased the useful life of your scale should it become necessary to weigh a 60kg item one day.

Inscale’s stock of postal scales range in capacities from as low as 3kg to as high as 3 Tonnes. As you might imagine, a 3kg scale is ideal for small parcels or padded envelopes, while 3 Tonnes can easily handle crates and pallets for bulk shipments.

3. Balancing Capacity with Readability

Readability on a scale is how many increments it will display the results. A scale with a readability of 0.1g will display results in increments of 0.1 – so you’ll get results like 32.3g or 4.7g, but not 32.38g or 4.77g. A scale with a readability of 1kg will offer results like 637kg or 445kg, but not 637.5kg or 445.9kg. The more increments the readability, the “finer” and more precise the output will be. Inscale’s postal weighing scales boast readabilities from 0.05g to 500g.

The goal is to find a postal scale with the finest readability for its capacity. Readability will typically be less fine the higher the capacity – you’ll never see a scale with a capacity of 1 Tonne and a readability of 0.01g. However, it’s not necessary, since results to the decimal place will have little to no effect on the shipping cost of a crate, while it may on a padded envelope. This does mean that if you’re working with parcels ranging significantly in weight, you may need more than one scale to accommodate the necessity for both accuracy and capacity. A bench scale for your lighter parcels and a platform or floor scale for your heavier packages and pallets may be the best option to give you the balance you require.

4. Deciding Between Applications

You may be searching for reliable postal weighing scales to do just and only that. Weigh. In which case, you’ll find many affordable options from Inscale with practically flat learning curves.

However, should you like a multi-functional scale, Inscale recommends searching for one that offers checkweighing and Tare functions. Not only will you be able to estimate shipping costs, but checkweighing helps ensure you’re within acceptable weight limits for each package. The Cruiser CKT even changes colours on the display to show if the item is below, within or over limits.

Even more important is the ability to Tare. Tare lets you weigh items in a container while not including the weight of the container itself in the results. For example, if you’re packing a box for shipping but you need to know the net weight. First, you would weigh the empty box. Then you would press tare, which would set the display to zero. Now you can fill the box and know that the results represent only the items you want. However, it’s important to consider that the weight of the container still counts as far as the capacity goes, so ensure you’re not overloading by accident!

Some scales, like the BKT, boast label-printing capabilities. You can print weight, labels, QR codes and bar codes without a separate accessory. You can get ahead with orders by packing in advance, weighing and labelling so when they’re ready to ship out later, you don’t have to weigh again and can reference some of the label information for the shipping label.

5. Considering Portability and Compact Design

Are you lacking space in your work area? Or, alternatively, is your work area so sprawling that you move around quite often? If the answer to either is yes, the most reliable postal weighing scales for you will be compact and portable. You can take it where you need it and then store it away when you don't. 

All bench scales and most floor scales offered on the Inscale site are portable in that they boast rechargeable batteries and so you don't have to plug them into the wall during use. They’re perfect for areas without readily available electricity as well.

Platform scales are almost guaranteed to take up space and keep it. Fortunately, options like Adam Equipment’s AELP Pallet Beams are the exception. Pallet beams are compact yet spread apart to accommodate shipments as large as 5 metres. Then, a handle and wheels mean they can be moved out of the way and stored until the next time they’re needed.

6. Weighing Compatibility with Software and Printers

When it comes to business, no record means it never happened, including your weigh-ins. Thorough record keeping is an excellent way to keep track of expenditures and inventory. Choosing a postal scale with either an RS-232 or USB interface means it’ll be compatible with software like AdamDU, which analyses weight data live, or printers, which takes record keeping from manual to automatic and always accurate. Consider the kind of records you need to be compliant for your company.

Need help making a final decision on your next reliable postal weighing scale? Contact the Inscale team for assistance.