Goin’ Postal is a quirky business with a personality focused on customers

Nola Comingore, owner of Goin’ Postal in Auburn, is surrounded Thursday by boxes at her store, which was recently named in the top 100 UPS authorized shippers nationwide. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

AUBURN — In an age of automation, self-serve and high technology, there is still somewhere you can go to get help returning a package, shipping a birthday present or get a document notarized.

Goin’ Postal on North River Road is so much more than a UPS authorized shipping outlet. Owner Nola Comingore and her team can pack and ship just about anything legal, whether its across town or on the other side of the globe.

She didn’t choose the name, it came with the franchise when she bought it in 2008.

Comingore bought Goin’ Postal as an existing business on Center Street. She and her husband relocated to Lewiston from Ohio in the midst of the housing bubble burst and what has become to be known as the Great Recession. In the ensuing years the business has moved twice and grown into one of the top UPS authorized shipping outlets in the country, a metric based strictly on volume.

“It just never occurred to me that I was that busy, Comingore said, seemingly thinking out loud. “You know, I feel busy, but I figured a place in a bigger city would certainly be busier. There’s only four of us here and two are part time. But somehow or other, I got this letter in the mail saying “congratulations, you’ve won top 100 in the country for ASO’s. And I said whaaaat?”

Keep in mind, that’s top 100 out of more than 4,500 authorized outlets. UPS offers up few details on this annual award, even when formally asked, not even to their affiliates. Goin’ Postal was given some monetary rewards from UPS in the form of increased payments and Comingore said they’re on track to be in the running again next year. The irony is, nobody even knew they were in a competition — they never entered anything and only found out when a letter arrived in the mail last month, along with a banner declaring their new designation.

Walking into Goin’ Postal on North River Road in Auburn is unlike any other shipping outlet. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

Walking in the door of Goin’ Postal is not the same experience as walking into the formal, antiseptic flagship stores. You might think you’ve entered a time warp, with oriental-looking carpets held down with duct tape, and what Comingore likes to call her “junktique” section — knickknacks, old posters and signs, Beanie Babies and so much more.

Comingore explains that the previous owner would ship merchandise for eBay customers and that well, she kind of inherited some of it. So, she put it out front and people started buying.

But the store’s true income comes from boxes, shipping and offering services to everyone who walks in the door.

“What we try to do here is when people come in and they have a problem — they need to ship something and they don’t know how to package it correctly, or they don’t have the stuff to do it with, or they’re clueless about the process,” Comingore explained. “Technology has made it a lot more complicated. If you go to return something, to say Amazon, you have to do it all on your smartphone or computer. And there are five or six different options you have and you don’t know which one is the best one — and people need other folks who are in the know to guide them And we just try to make that as easy and painless as possible.”

Comingore has expanded the store’s income nearly six-fold since she bought it, a slow but steady increase that’s allowed her and her employees to keep their sanity. She’s been expanding into nontraditional areas, like focusing on e-commerce, smaller shipments of palletized goods and international shipping. She’s added a website and has a new one under construction, started a Facebook page to attract the attention of younger patrons.

“We’re trying to target more younger people and we are getting more of them, because those are the people who are now starting their own e-business platforms,” Comingore said. “And they work at home, they’re making their own projects, products that need to be shipped out or they’re re-selling things — they’re eBay sellers or whatever.” Frequently, these are the customers who don’t have all the supplies or don’t want to deal with the shipping end of the business, she added.

“We also do freight on pallets,” she said. “If its too big or too heavy for UPS or Fedex, we palletize things and ship them via common carrier as well.”

That’s because trucking and logistics companies can’t usually be bothered with one-off shipments and look for half a truckload or a full truckload. A customer needed to ship a big rocking chair to Utah, so Goin’ Postal created a pallet, wrapped it and shipped it via common carrier. They’ll even ship a marine engine, as they have done, preparing it all in the parking lot. Yeah, they need more room.

Comingore also points to the Lewiston area’s large international community, which affords her the opportunity to go after another niche service — shipping letters, packages and the like to far away places like Africa, Asia or even Canada!

Walking into Goin’ Postal is a lot like seeing an old friend. “We’re constantly joking, I mean we know almost everybody that comes in. They feel like family, you know? And we talk and we chat and we joke…I’ve always said…this place is like Cheers.”

Be sure to ask for Norm the next time you’re there.