Earth Class Mail is looking to sell its massive mail sorting facility in Beaverton, Oregon as well as its retail operations in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York. It is also disbanding its enterprise sales push as the venture-backed Seattle startup focuses all of its efforts on building the technologies to power national post office systems.  As part of the new direction, the company has shed workers in some areas while adding positions in engineering and other groups.

Chief Executive Ron Wiener said the staff levels have stayed fairly constant at 115 employees in recent months, though that number is likely to drop to about 45 workers after the retail and mail processing facilities are divested. He expects those to be sold by the end of the year. "There's no sense in us continuing to run a brick and mortar business," said Wiener, adding that Earth Class Mail is transitioning to a "pure IP company."

The move marks a significant switch for the online postal mail company, which in December alone announced three new retail locations. It also comes as big changes sweep through the U.S. Postal Service, which is considering reducing delivery as it struggles with declining revenue tied to decreasing mail volumes.

Wiener said the retail stores -- including a store on Park Avenue in Manhattan -- were specifically opened as "petri dishes" in order to test the concept and prove the model for a larger buyer. The company plans to continue to license its technology to whomever buys the retail and mail processing facilities, whether it be a large postal system or a package delivery company like FedEx Kinkos.

The board approved the new direction last month in anticipation of a major contract that Earth Class Mail is expected to announce next week with Swiss Post. Wiener said the deal with Swiss Post (first announced last October) came together faster than they imagined, adding that sealing a partnership with a national postal system was on "like slide 29" of the business plan.

"Rather than knock off one company at a time, we've got a whole country," said Wiener in reference to the Swiss Post deal.

Still, the move does run counter to the original promise at Earth Class Mail, which has developed a system by which consumers and business people can read scanned versions of their postal mail online.

The company has morphed from selling its solution to consumers to selling to businesses to selling to postal services. At one point, Wiener said they had planned to open dozens of retail stores across the country. "We thought we would start building our own retail chain," he said. "Swiss Post has changed our whole business model."

Wiener said the company needed to go through each of the various business concepts in order to get to the point where it could earn the trust of a national postal system like Swiss Post. "I wish I could have started there, but it would have been impossible," said Wiener. "They would not have jumped at a PowerPoint."

Even with the focus on the Swiss Post deal, Wiener said the company will remain in Seattle. It does plan to establish a European headquarters as part of its overseas expansion, with Wiener saying the Swiss Post deployment is helping the company "establish credibility and momentum" with other national postal services.

Nonetheless, Wiener admits that selling off the retail and mail sorting facilities represents a "big shift."

Earth Class Mail has raised $21 million from Ignition Partners, angel investors and debt financing, with Wiener saying they will raise anywhere from $5 million to $20 million more in the next 12 months depending on the revenue generated from the Swiss Post deployment.