If you’ve ever driven through Blaine, you may have noticed the mailbox stores. There’s the first one on the street, and the one down from that. And there’s the one down from that. And the one down from that. Basically, there’s a lot – at least 20 in a town of only 5,300 people. As online shopping grows, shipping and packaging services become big business – especially in a border town.

Though Blaine has become more than just mailboxes and gas, package services are still big business. The industry has been around town for several decades, and it’s grown significantly in recent years thanks to online shopping – especially in Canada.
Many shipping outlets in town do steady business with our northern neighbors. Canadian shoppers save money and hassle by shipping their online buys to Blaine. By having a U.S. address to ship to, Canadians avoid international shipping fees, delays, and gain wider access to retailers that don’t ship outside the U.S.
Most mailbox store customers either pay a one-time fee for pickup or rent a mailbox, which they can use multiple times a year. While a small portion of customers are local, most are Canadian. Some purchases are from “big time” sites like Amazon or eBay, but they tend to come from a wide variety of online retailers. Some even use mailbox services for business purchases.
An International Mobility and Trade Corridor Program study revealed that out of the four main Washington state border crossings, 13 percent come to Blaine to pick up mail.
“That’s many, many thousands of trips coming just for that purpose,” says Blaine city manager Michael Jones.

It’s hard to quantify an exact number, Jones explains, because the revenue comes through sales tax. A recent law now determines sales tax by point of delivery, meaning that border-crossers pay local tax on their packages, which generates income. This makes it hard to track because, technically, online retailers make the sales.
“The existence of the new mailbox stores makes it seem as though we have a lot more customers here than live here,” says Jones.
Mail Boxes International was founded in the early 1990s and provides parcel receiving, private mailboxes and shipping services. It’s one of the town’s original mailbox stores, along with Security Mail Services and Hagen’s of Blaine.
“Almost 100 percent of our business is Canadian,” says Brant Baron, who works at Mail Boxes International. Locals will also use them to have a safe place to receive parcels, rather than leave expensive items on their front porch, he says.
Security Mail Services is one of the mailbox stores closest to the border and has been around for 30 years. They offer mailbox rental, general delivery, overnight lockers and more.
Lyn Hansen-Blizzard works at Security Mail. Though she’s retiring soon, she’s made several Canadian friends through her work over the past 20 years.
Security Mail once made big news. Someone was coming by several times a week to pick up packages, which was unusual, as most don’t come more than once a week. So they let the police know.

“When the police got involved, come to find out he was not only selling drugs through FedEx, but large amounts of cash,” says Hansen-Blizzard. “With our help, they were able to arrest him.”
The police busted the man in a sting operation, finding several thousand dollars in cash, plus meth and marijuana with a street value of over $1 million.
Security Mail has also had famous athletes, actors and musicians stop by. Though they can’t talk about their customers for confidential security reasons, Hansen-Blizzard gets excited when she sees actors she met through work on TV.
“I met a lot of interesting people that I probably would have never met in my life if it hadn’t been for working here,” she says.
The average length of a trip to Blaine is 20 minutes. Most don’t stay long, just enough to get gas or pick up packages. “All these customers are coming in; they filter in and they filter out without stopping because there really was no reason to stop,” says Mike Hill, owner of the Hill’s Chevron. “We had nothing to stop them with, other than to get gas.”
Now they can stop and enjoy a little break at Skye Hill Station and the “lighthouse” Starbucks.
And other local businesses are looking to catch Canadian attention as well.
Typical of a border town, Blaine has seen its share of boom-busts. Anything reliant on people crossing the border is susceptible to that, Jones says.
“There are a lot of risks to this business; it’s very dependent on a strong Canadian dollar,” Baron says. “If shipping to Canada became cheaper and/or less cumbersome internationally, our ability to bring value would be substantially diminished.”
Regardless, the industry seems to be growing. According to Jones, more and more people are crossing for packages, which means there’s more chance to attract people to Blaine’s waterfront beauty and local offerings. Hill is especially optimistic. “I really believe in where we’re at.”
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