First there were stamps that you had to moisten (= lick) to put on an envelope.

Then came the self-adhesive ones.

Then came prepaid postage for parcels to print at home.

Now I can buy prepaid postage and just write it on the top right corner of the parcel. Three rows, four characters each, to be written in capital letters in dark ink.

I’m selling a thing online through Tradera, and they offered this as a standard service. This was the first time I ran across this method of paying for postage. A pretty obvious invention, after the fact, but I still find it really clever.