Neighborhood Mail

Filed under Cost, Revenue, and Rates, Mailing Services, Sales and Service  

Did you know? There are 27.2 million small businesses in the U.S.

The Postal Service requires full addresses on most mail, but this creates unnecessary complications for small local businesses such as pizza parlors and dry cleaners that simply want to send a flyer to every address in the surrounding area. It would be much easier for them to bring a stack of unaddressed mail pieces to the Postal Service and let the Postal Service deliver one to each address.

The Postal Service previously worked on a concept called Neighborhood Mail to meet this need. Using Neighborhood Mail, a business could send unaddressed mail to potential customers in the community it serves. The Postal Service would tell the business how many pieces were necessary to cover the delivery area and charge it for delivery. Such a service is not unusual. Many postal services in other countries offer unaddressed mail service.

Is Neighborhood Mail a good idea?

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Neighborhood Mail, however, has its opponents. Newspapers, which compete with mail for local advertising, opposed the development of the Neighborhood Mail concept in the past. Neighborhood Mail would also compete with mail consolidators and alternate delivery providers which currently help small businesses deliver information to the community. In addition, unaddressed mail could raise environmental concerns, so the Postal Service might want to offer households the ability to opt out of receiving Neighborhood Mail.

What do you think about Neighborhood Mail? Are there other services the Postal Service could introduce to help local communities?

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Permalink | Comments (17) | Feb 17, 2009

 

 

17 Responses to “Neighborhood Mail”

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  1. 17
    judy Says:
    July 24th, 2009 at 8:51 am

    Just what would be the charge on this? Some papers deliver it already in the for $29 per thousand for a single sheet flyer. Can the Post Office offer this rate? Also, most times 1,000 flyers doesn’t get the saturation an advertiser needs to pull in customers.

  2. 16
    NAAD Says:
    July 7th, 2009 at 11:25 am

    I think that unaddressed mail is a bad idea for the USPS. It will destroy the value of advertising mail and fuel the fires of Do Not Mail Legislation.

  3. 15
    nathalie Says:
    July 2nd, 2009 at 11:44 am

    Bad idea. Trends are to target and personlize more, not less. This practice would create more unwanted junk mail and there would be no way to have yourself removed from the list.

  4. 14
    Joseph Says:
    July 1st, 2009 at 1:42 pm

    I am a small business owner, and rather than walk around putting door hangers onto people’s doors, I would rather pay the USPS to pop them into a mailbox.

  5. 13
    Chair2009 Says:
    June 30th, 2009 at 4:51 pm

    Neighborhood mail could work for small churches and businesses needing to reach the community. However, some rules would need to be in place to insure it was cost effective for the Postal Service. First it would cost the same as regular mail no discount. The advantage for the customer is they can hit each house on the street. The Postal Service would provide a list of street and a number of stops each carrier makes to the business or church. The business would place a first class stamp on each piece and then divide the number of pieces by carrier and street. Example: CR 6 gets 200 letters for Ridge Ave. CR 7 gets 50 letters for Ridge Ave. That way if several carriers worked the same street it would not be a problem. Second the business would have to separate by carrier and street. As I said earlier they would bring a tray or sack for each carrier in that neighborhood with the number for each street. The requirement would be they must take it to the BMEU and then after approval they deliver it DDU style to the unit. The carriers would basically take out their flyers for the street and deliver house by house similar to what they do already. It is a win win for the customer and the post office.

  6. 12
    melissaf Says:
    June 30th, 2009 at 12:55 pm

    I think that Neighborhood Mail is bad idea because of privacy and environmental issues.

  7. 11
    harryturner Says:
    June 29th, 2009 at 3:42 pm

    Neighborhood mail (unaddressed mail) is an awful answer!! It failed in the 1950’s and now the USPS has developed high tech letter and flat sorters in intersort Standard A mail into Walk Route Sequence…now in a single stream. For nearly 60 years we and a number of progressive responsible regional and national mailers have mailed Resident mail for retailers in walk sequence…long before the USPS built its own address system. It was and is a good and efficient product which has saved the USPS many tons of money during that time period. Harry Turner

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