Toner getting smeared at the post office

[Craig]

Thanks for the link Paul!!!

 

[LodAssoc]

I print mailed postcards everyday. Anywhere from 300-3000 each day. What I have found when doing mailings is, as hard as you try to get your peice not to mark in mailing, it's going to. Even if you UV it or Varnish it. It won't mark as much, but you'll get a small mark on it. If you want to keep your productivity up and reduce marking, print on a silk or dull coated sheet, and an uncoated sheet. Also, using different methods of mailing can help also. I mail my postcards straight 1st Class. It is the most expensive, but the peices don't get nearly as beat up. If you do presorted mailing, make sure you print in order and keep in order. If you have the capablitities to tray your peaices and do the paperwork, and take directly to the PO sorted great, if not find a good mail house to tray everything for you. Also make sure you NCOA your lists, that way all bad address get throuwn out and they aren;t send back and forth through the mailing system. Hope this helps...

 

[raminmd]

LodAssoc,

I do agree with you on the paper...silk and uncoated stocks get through the postal system better than coated stocks. However, they don't look as good (at least for a lot of our clients).

We are a mail house that got into printing. We do all the paperwork and tray everything. All the lists are scrubbed and run through our postal software. Basically, everything we drop off at the post office is already set up according to the postal regulations and sorted to get the best postage possible. We mail for a lot of customers who do anywhere from a 1,000 to 20,000 postcards regularly. Sending them first class will be prohibitively expensive for them. There is a reason why pre-sort standard mail was introduced. It is a great way for businesses to advertise themselves without spending an insane amount of money. Like someone mentioned before, all this is happening because of USPS' 'impatience' problem. They have machines that produce a tremendous amount of friction because of the speeds they run at.

We just got a call from a client who mailed a postcard through is. She is convinced we messed up the printing and are just blaming the post office. She wants us to write a letter saying that the piece was messed up at the post office and give her our contact at the local post office so she can talk to them. We tried explaining why it happens but she was just not prepared to listen. I am now drafting a letter and will attach the presentation someone was kind enough to post on this thread. Sometimes, I just wonder if the post office would act with the same indifference if it were a private organization with some accountability.

Sorry about the rant....I just had to vent.

 

[LodAssoc]

raminmd,

You are absolutely right about the paper. If your clients are ok with it, run Silk or UnCo. I have been able to sell my clients on Silk coating for pretty much everything. It looks good, runs well, mails well.

Straight 1st Class, is by far more expensive, but it's also the safest, as you know. It gets processed and mailed faster, as upposed to possibly taking 2 weeks PRSRT STD. There are advantages of both. I have a pricing grip that I give my clients for postcards and all that is taken into account.

I have had the same situation happen to me with a client wanting to know why there stuff gets beat up ion the mail. It's a touchy subject, b/c the post office will blame the printed peice, the printer will blame the post office for their shoty equipment that hasn't been updated in years. And the poor client, just wants answers. It's a vicious cycle.

I sometimes wonder what it would be if it wasn't gov't regualted also. Like, what wuold it be like if they had some competition (i.e. ups or fedex starting some sort of mail service). Now that would be interesting. B/c technically the USPS has a monopoly. I guess the gov't doesn't play by the same rules...

It's a fun business we're in, isn't it...

 

[canufinishit]

Is there a link to this information. Just curious.