commingling mail

Despite commingling’s widespread use by commercial mailers, there are still a lot of misperceptions about this money-saving technique. Here are four of the most common myths about commingling mail:

1. You have to pay inbound freight to get your mailing to the commingling company

MailSmart Logistics, like most other comminglers, will pick up your mailing at your facility at no charge as part of our service.

2. Smaller mailings are prohibitively expensive to commingle

MailSmart Logistics charges one price for all the mail you commingle between now and the next postage increase. Your company’s cost is dependent only upon the total volume of mail you commingle annually and, unlike other comminglers, we have no minimum size job.

3. Commingled mail takes longer to be delivered

Mail dropped off at the local post office typically goes through six different postal facilities before it is delivered to the recipient’s home. From the local post office, it travels to the nearest Sectional Center Facility (SCF), then that region’s Network Distribution Center (NDC), then the destination NDC, the destination SCF and, finally, the local post office near the recipient. At each of these locations, it risks being delayed as it is processed and resorted.

Commingling bypasses most of these steps. At least 90% of your commingled mail will be shipped directly to the destination SCF, with the balance going to the destination NDC. By bypassing most of the intermediate postal facilities, our analysis of mail delivery times in 2014 shows you can expect your mail to be delivered 2.4 days faster on average if it is commingled than if it is sent through the normal mail stream.

4. You risk losing control of your mailing if you commingle

If you take a mailing to the Post Office yourself, you will know when your mailing enters the mail stream, but you won’t have a lot of confidence as to when your mail will actually be delivered.

By contrast, MailSmart Logistics offers free mail tracking on every piece of mail you commingle. Never again will you have to wonder what percentage of your mailing has arrived as this data is available to you online in real time. Contrary to the myth that you have less control, commingling dramatically increases the knowledge you have about the delivery of your mailing.

If you would like to explore whether commingling is appropriate for your company, let’s talk! Please let us know when a good time to call you would be.

MailSmart Logistics provides worry-free shipping at remarkably-low postal rates–
You’re going to love working with MailSmart Logistics!

People often assume it is a time-consuming process to start commingling mail with MailSmart Logistics or that they need to have really big mailings. Fortunately, neither could be further from the truth. You only need to do two or three things before we pick up your first mailing, none of which should take more than a few minutes:

1. Determine your commingling rate for the year. All we need to know to determine your commingling rate is how many pieces you can commit to commingling per year. Since we don’t charge extra for pickups or anything else for letter-size mail under 1.5 ounces, we can tell you instantly what it will cost you for each piece of commingled mail you send between now and the next postage increase (and for larger or heavier mail, we can tell you if there are any surcharges).
2. Confirm nonprofit status at our drop location. If you are a nonprofit or mail for them, we will need to make sure each nonprofit has nonprofit status at the mail drop location where we’ll take your commingled mail. If nonprofit status needs to be acquired, we’ll ask the nonprofit to fill out Form 3623 and then will coordinate approval through the USPS. We can usually get approval within one business day of submitting the paperwork.
3. Information about this specific job. For each mailing, we’ll need to know the following:
   a.   The name of the client
   b.   The job name and job number
   c.   The number of pieces, broken down by mailing version if necessary
   d.   How you are affixing postage
   e.   When and where the mailing should be picked up, preferably with at least 24 hours advance notice

Our goal is to make commingling effortless for our clients. If you have any questions or concerns about our bulk mail services, let’s talk!

MailSmart Logistics provides worry-free shipping at remarkably-low postal rates –
You’re going to love working with MailSmart Logistics!