Many of you might be confused between postal scale vs kitchen scale. Some people often think that both are same as they come in almost the same size and shape. However, there is a significant difference between both scales especially if you are looking for the precise weight calculations.
That is why for online businesses that deal with a lot of postal deliveries, choosing the right one is very important. So, which one suits best for your unique needs? You will learn the answer in this detailed comparison between a postal scale and a kitchen scale.
What Is a Kitchen Scale?
A kitchen scale, which is also known as a food scale, is used to weigh food and other items in your kitchen. These scales are designed to help you get your ingredients in the right quantity when cooking. It is available in both spring and balance types, but balanced digital scales are more common now due to their better design and precise calculation.
Simply put, a kitchen scale is designed to use in the kitchen for cooks to weigh food items. Even though you can weigh anything you want on these scales including postal parcels, their primary job is to weigh food ingredients.
What Is a Postal Scale?
As the name suggests, a postal scale is designed to weigh postal packages. These are commonly used by businesses that deal with shipping products to their customers.
These are comparatively sensitive scales to calculate precise weights. The primary purpose of postal scales is to weigh parcels to help users determine the actual postage rate applied on the parcel. You can find these in most businesses that help them in saving hundreds of dollars in excess postage costs.
Postal scales are available in mostly three different types, namely manual, digital, and USB programmable scales. The modern, smart programmable postal scales can not only weigh your parcel, but can also determine the postage charges on their own, print out postal labels, and add data to the online database or software on your computer.
Simply put, if you’re a business that sells products online, the postal scale is more than mandatory for you.
Even the basic definitions can give you an idea how different both scales are with an entirely different use for each. Nevertheless, to add more clarity to the topic, let’s look into some more detailed differences.
Postal Scale vs Kitchen Scale: The Key Differences
As denoted above, a postal scale and kitchen scale are not the same at all. They are two different scales designed for an entirely different purpose. Even though sometimes you may find some models that look the same, there is a difference in how they work.
Using a kitchen scale for business purposes especially for online delivery businesses is not a good idea at all, and can result in both overpaying the postage or the delivery getting back to you after a week for underpaying the postage. In both cases, it is bad news for business.
Here are some key differences.
1. Type
Kitchen scales are available in two different forms, one is spring, and the other is balanced. On the contrary, postal scales are only available in one type, and that is a balanced scale. That is because balanced scales have high accuracy and in some countries, spring scales are illegal to use in the trade as they are not considered reliable.
That said, if the kitchen scale is also a balanced scale, there is a good chance that both the kitchen and postal scales have used same electronics and mechanism. That means when the spring kitchen scale is a lot different from a postal scale, a balanced kitchen scale is more comparable to a postal scale.
2. Sensitivity and Accuracy
Postal scales are designed to save money for businesses on postage charges, and that is only possible with very precise readings, which is why these scales, especially digital and programmable postal scales are very sensitive. They offer you exact weight calculations up to several decimal points. Unfortunately, the same level of accuracy is often missing in kitchen or food scales.
3. Weight Capacity
If you compare weight capacities, you will find that kitchen scales have lower weight capacity compared to postal scales, especially since postal scales are available in different weight capacity options. You can find postal scales of up to 250 pounds of maximum capacity as well as compact units that come with a weight capacity of three pounds only.
That means if you ship large items, you can’t use kitchen scales even if you want to. Some large postal scales also come with external display options, so there is a little or no chance that bulky items can obscure the display screen.
4. Postal Scales Are Smart Devices
If you want to connect your scale to your computer to automatically import the charges from the software and to record weights on your computer, you need a USB programmable digital postal scale. This connectivity and smart features are not available with kitchen scales.
5. Postal Scales Can be Used with Label Printers
USB Programmable scales also allow you to print out labels and even compare carriers to calculate charges for each item. You just have to connect your scale to a printer, and it will print postal labels for you. This saves businesses a lot of time. This feature is also missing with kitchen scales.
Final Words
If you already have a kitchen scale and you need one to weight parcels and items for the business-delivery purpose, buying a new one may look like an unnecessary investment. If you are using a kitchen scale for your business, you are using a scale that is not appropriate for trade purposes and is not designed for it; thus, this may be costing you in overpaying postage charges.
On the other hand, buying a postal scale is more affordable and is a more financially sound decision as it will save you hundreds of dollars a month, and will pay for itself in a week. It will also add efficiency to your business process and will reduce working hours.
All in all, after reading our detailed postal scale vs kitchen scale comparison, we are sure you already now have a clear idea why postal scales are a good fit for your business compared to kitchen scales.
