Goin’ Postal Offers More Than Mail

PASCO COUNTY, FLORIDA, TBO.com

By JIJLM FERHANTE jferrante@tarnpatrib.com

ZEPHYRHILLS — MJ. and Marcus Price know it can be stressful trying to find the perfect gift, wrap it and ship it before the holidays.

The Prices, both 31, say that’s one of the reasons they recently opened Goin’ Postal, 5310 Eighth St.

Customers can make copies, send faxes, pick up mail, get documents notarized, buy postage stamps and select gifts ranging from fruit baskets to skydiving equipment.

The Zephyrhills couple hopes to draw customers with a business strategy that includes offering a free cup of coffee, an open door to pets and - at least in the Prices’ estimation — some humor.

Main Street Zephyrhills Director Cynthia Craig, who leases the 450-square-foot store to the Prices, said Goin’ Postal is a convenient alternative to the Zephyrhills Post Office at North Avenue.

Downtown boosters are trying to get more businesses to stay open later.

The Prices plan to open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. before the holidays and say they hope to eliminate long waits for customers.

“They will be able to fill out forms and leave their stuff I to be packaged here,” Marcus Price said.

“We’ll charge it to their credit card, and they can pick it up the next day.”

The new store also offers mail box rentals and shipping services and will pick up packages from homes in the city. The Prices say they will sort or discard junk mall for customers, build Web sites and print business cards.

The skydiving equipment is offered through the couple’s other business, www.gear-store.com
“We think downtown’s really needed this, especially after the place across the street closed,” Marcus Price said, referring to the former Neukom’s drug store at Fifth Avenue, which had a post office.

M.J. Price is from upstate New York and bills herself as a newspaper columnist, public relations consultant, radio personality, animal trainer, pet tattooist, belly dance instructor, singer and stand-up comic.

She said she will offer free yoga classes and pet behavior seminars between the store’s grand opening on Oct. 26 and Christmas.

Marcus Price, originally from Cheltenham, England, said he got his business start at age 5 selling ear plugs at air shows.

A student pilot and former skydiving video-photographer, he said will convert customers’ digital photographs to prints and mouse pads.

If Goin’ Postal succeeds, the Prices hope to make it a franchise.

‘You’ve got to start somewhere,” Marcus Price said. For information, call (813) 783-1315.