What PigeonTrail does
Card sellers and other small shops mail most of their orders as stamped letters, because a letter costs $0.82 with a Forever stamp and the cheapest package label costs several dollars. A stamped letter has no tracking number, though, so neither the seller nor the buyer can see where it is. PigeonTrail lays out the envelope with the address and a USPS barcode on the seller's own printer, and once the seller adds a stamp and mails it, every scan USPS records shows up on a tracking page that both of them can open.
It brings orders in from TCGplayer, eBay, Mana Pool and Shopify, works out the day USPS expects each letter, and flags the letters that fall behind. You can read how that works for card orders on the PWE tracking page, or for any letter in First Class letter tracking.
Where the scans come from
USPS assigned PigeonTrail its own Mailer ID, the number that names us as the mailer inside every barcode we print. Each barcode also gets a serial number from our server, so no two letters share one. When USPS's sorting machines read the barcode, USPS records the scan and reports it to us through Informed Visibility, its mail tracking service for business mailers, and we put it on the letter's page.
The day USPS expects a letter comes from USPS's own service standards for First Class Mail. You can read the Mailer ID and the serial number on any envelope we print with the free barcode decoder, and our guide to the Intelligent Mail barcode explains what each part means.
What a USPS scan tells you
A scan shows that the letter passed through one of USPS's plants, and where. Nobody scans a letter at the mailbox or at the door, so when USPS marks one delivered, it is USPS's estimate from the carrier's route that day, and a scan is never proof of delivery or of mailing. Our guide to what each USPS scan means covers every event, and if you need a record that holds up, Certified Mail or a Certificate of Mailing is the right choice.
How we write our guides
Our guides quote USPS, TCGplayer, eBay and Mana Pool from their own pages, with links and the date we checked them, and we update a guide when a price or a rule changes. Our comparison pages state only what other tools publish on their own websites, with the date we read each one. If you find a mistake on any page, write to us and we will fix it.
Who runs PigeonTrail
PigeonTrail is a service of Signal Harbor Technologies LLC, a New Mexico company, and it opened in October 2026. It is independent, so it is not affiliated with the United States Postal Service, TCGplayer, eBay, Mana Pool or Shopify, and it uses USPS's services the way any business mailer does.
How to reach us
Write to support@pigeontrail.com with any question about PigeonTrail, a letter or this site, and we will write back from that address. The help page answers the common questions about signing in, the iPhone app and your plan.