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CARROLLTON – Joe Gaikoski is making it easier to send good things in small packages. In the process, he hopes his company gets many happy returns.

Last month, the 37-year-old owner and president of Amerisource Packaging & Printing LLP launched EZ Postage, billed as the "world's first postage-paid box."

It comes in two sizes – one for $4.99 that snuggly holds a CD and a $5.99 model for a DVD or game disc.

It's all about convenience. Buy a gift and the postage-paid box, then drop the package in a mailbox to any destination in the United States, including Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico.

Mr. Gaikoski guarantees that his prepaid postage will cover its intended use. Use one to mail metal parts, and you're on your own.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, he promises. EZ Postage for books, photos and documents are being developed.

"So this is postage paid for heavier than Nemo," he says, proffering a DVD mailer.

Patent attorney Tom Timmons was skeptical when Mr. Gaikoski knocked on his door for legal help. "I thought, 'This is so simple. It must have been done before,' " recalls the Dallas attorney, who's been doing patent work for 29 years.

Before taking the job, Mr. Timmons ran a routine patent search and a more thorough one on the Internet. To his amazement, he found lots of patents for specialty shipping boxes and packages but none with prepaid postage.

Netflix, for example, mails subscribers its rental movie discs without the plastic covers in metered-mail envelopes.

Mr. Timmons says he filed a broad utility patent in September for any specialty package with prepaid shipping – be it transported by U.S. mail, UPS or FedEx. Although the U.S. Patent Office hasn't responded, he's "reasonably confident" that "pending" will become "permanent" – but it could take six months to a year.

In the last three months, Mr. Gaikoski has sent nearly 500 videos, CDs and games to family and friends to test the system.

"The beauty really hit home with me the first time I walked out to the mailbox in my pajamas and mailed Bruce Almighty to my sister-in-law in Honolulu," he says. "It went out on Monday, and she called on Thursday to thank me for the gift."

Ironically, the newness of EZ Postage creates a sizable hurdle for Mr. Gaikoski, who has to convince retailers that the postage-paid boxes will actually enhance sales. Then consumers have to prove his hypothesis.

So far, a dozen major retailers have expressed interest, including Wal-Mart Stores, which asked for samples. The Army & Air Force Exchange Service and the parent company of CD Warehouse are in the final stages of setting up tests but haven't signed their deals yet.

"It's so easy, it's difficult," says Mr. Gaikoski. "People can't understand why, if it's such a great idea, it hasn't been done before."

Moving experience

This isn't the first time Mr. Gaikoski has moved into uncharted entrepreneurial seas.

Joseph Greer Gaikoski was born and reared in Akron, Ohio, the youngest of five children in a blue-collar home of modest means.

The week he graduated from high school in 1985, the Akron Beacon Journal ran a story about 186 people applying for two jobs at a local McDonald's. That was a clear indication to the 18-year-old that it was time to head to Dallas, where his father had moved after his parents divorced.

His first job was at Sysco Food Systems unloading 100-pound sacks of potatoes.

"By the time I was 21, I was the night manager at Sysco in charge of 70 employees," says Mr. Gaikoski. "By the time I was 23, I was at Tuesday Morning as director of distribution."

In June 1996, at the encouragement of his late wife, Nancy, Mr. Gaikoski quit his $45,000 job, cashed in his 401(k) and took out a $1,000 cash advance on his MasterCard to start a company that provided boxes and packaging materials.

"We ate a lot of Kraft macaroni and cheese and Ramen noodles that first year," he says.

The company, then called ProTek Packaging, was doing well and had annual sales of about $1 million in 1998 when Nancy was diagnosed with breast cancer. She died nine months later.

A grief-stricken Mr. Gaikoski let his employees go and moved his company's operations into a neighboring packaging company to concentrate on rearing his two young children.

He emerged from his business cocoon in November of 2001 after meeting and marrying Roz, whose daughter sat next to his son in pre-kindergarten class.

He changed the company's name to Amerisource in honor of 9-11.

How much that division will bring in is a big question.

More testing

Mr. Gaikoski is in final negotiations with Magnolia Entertainment LLC in Oklahoma City about testing the boxes in CD Warehouses.

Magnolia vice president Matt Allen likes the concept but has no idea whether it'll actually fly. "I plan to test it in a small, a medium and a large market and see what happens."

For one thing, Mr. Allen worries that the product may be seasonal, and the holidays are over. "So I'm not sure this is the best time to give it a try."

Still, he's intrigued. Having an on-the-spot way to mail might spawn impulse purchases as well as encourage customers who typically purchase gifts online to buy at the store instead – and buy a box to boot.

Mr. Gaikoski has also heard encouraging words from Dallas-based AAFES about putting the boxes in its military stores.

His sales pitch to the Army and Air Force stores, as well as to the Navy Exchange Command in Virginia Beach, Va., is that his boxes are U.S. Postal Service-approved and can be sent to bases anywhere in the world, including Iraq, without additional postage.

The Postal Service, which is undoubtedly pleased that someone wants to buy a bunch of stamps, is considering putting the boxes in its vending machines, Mr. Gaikoski says.

"I'll be totally shocked if EZ Postage sales don't reach $3.5 million by the end of this year. But then I'm passionate and excited," he says, half-heartedly trying to rein in his zeal. "For example, if Blockbuster puts them in all of its stores and just sells one box a day at each, that would be $32,725 a day," he says, keying in an average wholesale price and multiplying by 8,500 stores.

Dennis Serratt, a retail product broker for Professional Reps Group Inc. in Fort Worth, thinks he's aligned with a winner.

In fact, he figures Mr. Gaikoski's early estimates might be a little low.

"Once one major retailer signs up, this is going to explode," predicts Mr. Serratt, who's been a manufacturer's rep for 22 years. "By the end of next year, this is going to be phenomenal."

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