Direct mail suffers from one conspicuous burden: it has to physically travel from one location to another. According to the laws of physics, travel takes time. And whereas email travels like the speed of light, direct mail trudges along at the speed of a tortoise.

But worse – to get into mailboxes faster you have to opt for the more expensive route of first class mail. If you opt for the basic rate, presort standard, you will pay much less per piece (around 30 cents), but it will take 7-10 days to deliver. Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

If you have time, we recommend mailing at the presort standard rate. The extra speed of first class mail doesn’t make up for the cost incurred.

More and more though we are seeing customers who do rely on the speed of first class AND the cheaper cost of presort standard. A slew of circumstances could provide a basis for doing so: new art from the graphics department, a storm has caused a venue date change, or a company wants to mail his customers before the holidays. These are all real circumstances that both marketers and mailer face each day.

This is where it makes sense to Drop Ship mail.

Drop Ship is a service of the United State Postal Service that combines the best of both worlds. This means you get the affordability of presort standard with the speed of first class. So, let’s say you want to mail 10,000 postcards to Denver, Colorado. Here is what will happen.

1. Your mailhouse would print the card like normal.
2. The mailhouse would take the card to the post office.
3. The post office would verify the paperwork.
4. The mailhouse would pick the material up from the post office.
5. Then, the mailhouse will SHIP the material through a truck line (e.g. - Fedex) to that post office in Denver and enter the mail through the stream there.

The process is basically the same level of procedures. But having a truck line ship all the material directly to a different post office makes a world of difference.

The only downside is the cost of freight.

With the above example, you might pay somewhere between 150-175 dollars in freight charges. The bigger the job, the better; the money you save per piece outweighs the cost of freight. In most cases – big or small – you will save money. The best part? Your 10,000 postcards will deliver in FIVE days. Compare that with the normal 7-10 days rate, and you’ll see how important this is.

If you would like to learn more about dropships, give us a call here. We’d love to help you out!