As a business owner with no fixed office, having a physical address is critical to e-commerce businesses. Whether you're dropshipping or just managing your online store from home, the address you provide as your business address will be public. To prevent sharing your home address, you can instead rent a digital mailbox for your business.

What is a digital mailbox?

A private digital mailbox is a physical mailbox that you can rent from a shipping company or business service. Similar to a PO box provided by the USPS, you will be assigned a mailbox or suite number to your online account. Instead of having to physically check your box, you will get email or app notifications of incoming mail.  Most virtual mailbox services will attach a scan of the front of envelope so you know what arrived. These services usually allow you to take actions like request the contents of the mail to be scanned, the mail forwarded or let you schedule an in-person pickup.

Why use a digital mailbox?

Anyone can take advantage of a virtual mailbox service, but they are particularly useful for digital nomads, frequent travelers, business owners, other professionals and anyone concerned about privacy. The main reason to rent a digital mailbox is to keep your home address private when conducting business. Another reason people use these services is to receive mail while they are away, to ensure packages don't get stolen or left outside while traveling.

Can I use a digital mailbox for my business?

Absolutely! We have used two digital mailbox services for business so far. These have served multiple purposes, namely keeping home addresses private while conducting business online. When you run an e-commerce business, you are required to provide a business address in many cases.

E-commerce Stores

Most Shopify stores and other online stores typically share a business address with buyers in their terms of service and privacy policy pages. Customers usually trust businesses more when they provide contact details or other info like a physical address.

Email Marketing Compliance

Most countries require you to include an address by law in any marketing emails sent by an ESP (email service provider) like Mailchimp or Klaviyo. In the US, this is one of the requirements of the CAN-SPAM law.

Do you really have to share your address to send emails? Yes. If you send marketing emails, you must comply. As per the FTC (Federal Trade Commission):

Your message must include your valid physical postal address. This can be your current street address, a post office box you’ve registered with the U.S. Postal Service, or a private mailbox you’ve registered with a commercial mail receiving agency established under Postal Service regulations.

Online Marketplaces

Many online marketplaces like Etsy and Amazon require you to share a business address with consumers that is publicly available to comply with European Union laws, which are typically stricter about transparency. Marketplaces may require addresses regardless if you sell to the EU or not.

Etsy says:

EU law requires sellers to clearly and prominently provide specific information to buyers before they agree to purchase their products. For example, you must disclose your name (with enough detail to know who you are, such as your full name or company name), email address, phone number, and geographic address

Digital Mailbox Reviews

We have personally tried two online mailbox services for our own businesses: Anytime Mailbox and iPostal1. Truthfully, these are both budget services. And in most cases, you get what you pay for. Both of these services work on a franchise model, where physical shipping stores or businesses can sign up to be a part of their network. So Anytime Mailbox and iPostal1 are just the middlemen, and these independent physical retail locations are the ones handling your mail and managing your digital mailbox. The main reasons you would want to go with services with the franchise model:

Mail Pickup: There are hundreds of locations between these two services, so you are likely to find one near you that will allow you to physically pick up your mail. Most locations charge an additional fee for this. Our iPostal1 location charges is $1/per pickup, but this varies.

Price: Anytime Mailbox and iPostal1 are cheaper options than premium services like EarthClassMail. If you are looking for an affordable solution with no frills and have a low volume of mail, Anytime Mailbox and iPostal1 will fit the bill. But you will incur extra fees for any additional services like mail forwarding, mail pickup, and storage fees.

Our iPostal1 Virtual Mailbox Experience

• Poor user interface and online app. We found it confusing and very outdated. Does not seem to be well maintained.

• Communication with the mailbox provider is not great

• In our case, mail scanning and pickups were not included in the monthly plan

• Cost: Each location differs. But for our Florida address, we paid $99 for an annual plan (or $9.99/mo), in addition to a $25 online notary fee. In-person pickups cost us $1 and there were no mail scans included. So they are an additional $2.25 for up to 10 pages, then $.25 per page

Our Anytime Mailbox Experience

• We have had 2 separate addresses with Anytime Mailbox, one in New York and one in Florida. Both were fine.

• Most plans include a small quota of available mail scans, so if you have low volume you probably don't have to pay extra to get the contents of your mail scanned

• The online interface was easier to use than iPostal1

• Cost: Each location differs. For our Florida address, we paid we paid $109 for an annual plan (or $9.99/mo). This included 5 "Open and Scans" and unlimited recycling. Physical pickups were $3/each item

Given these three reasons above, we prefer and recommend Anytime Mailbox over iPostal1. Even though there are better options than these two, we really cannot recommend iPostal1 unless you are planning on low volume or will pick up mail often. Both services do the job however.