This difference is a commonly forgotten factor when sending parcels through any courier service but holds particular relevance when sending parcels through the Post Office. The Post Office charges its customers by both cubic weight and dead weight (whichever is the greatest) and if you don’t get this right it is highly likely that your consignment will be delayed because it bears insufficient postage.

Luckily however the calculation is very simple even for those of us who have a selective memory of everything that we were taught about math in high school!

Dead weight is exactly as it sounds – it can be measured by placing the item on a scale.

Cubic weight is calculated by using the following formula:

Length Of The Object (m) x Height Of The Object (m) x Width Of The Object (m) x 250

So now for an example if we wanted to send a box that was 20cm x 20cm x 20cm and when we put the item on a scale it weighs 1kg – I don’t know what we would be sending in a box so big that only weighs 1kg but hey this is just an example!

Substituting the values into our formula we are left with:

0.2 x 0.2 x 0.2 x 250 = 2kg

Therefore for this parcel we should be paying for an item that weighs 2kg not 1kg and if we don’t we should be worried about the post office delaying the delivery because of the insufficient postage.

So there you have it, its as simple as that!

A question we have had from a few customers recently , particularly those that are new to the postage industry is what exactly is DX Mail and how does it differ from the Post Office offering for getting my documents across the country.

DX mail actually is a reference to the document exchange and it bears it roots in the legal profession where clerks from different law firms would meet at a certain spot each afternoon to exchange relevant documents relating to the matters they were representatives for.

Naturally this posed many issues with the obvious one being – what if the firm representing the other party was located in a different area then my offices?

Fast forward to day and we have DX Mail which at its core is a subscription service whereby members can sent unlimited amounts of mail to other DX members in return for an annual fee. The organisation that is responsible for it has set up DX hubs in many areas around the country and these essentially have become DX “Post Offices” whereby its members can lodge and collect items from their secure DX Box located inside the hub.

The service is typically still used by law firms but has also expanded to many larger businesses sending correspondence through the DX exchange. These larger businesses also utilise the service to send documents from offices to offices within their own company and have set up DX boxes in this location for this function.

One issue that has been expressed to us by customers is that while they do find this service convenient, they still are required to send a staff member to the DX hub each morning to collect their incoming DX mail as well as visiting the hub again each afternoon to lodge their outgoing DX.

Couple this with the same requirement to visit the Post Office each morning and afternoon to do a similar function and this adds up to a lot of unproductive time being wasted each day carrying out these menial tasks.

Enter Everyday Mail – we are a specialised mail courier service carrying out this service for hundreds of businesses each day and even if you are using a service to do this already we can still help you as we have many other customers to save a significant amount of money on this function. Click here to read more about how we can help you to save money or call us on 1300 624 562 to have a no obligation discussion.

Clean mail is a bulk discount service offered by the Post Office for mailouts numbering more than 300 in a specific letter category that are formatted according guidelines set out by the post office.

The main two addressing requirements are firstly that the bottom row of the address position being the suburb, state and postcode is all in CAPS and secondly that the addresses are all machine addressed so this would not apply to hand written envelopes.

Many businesses take advantage of this service for mailouts such as statements or invoices or alternatively for their marketing mailouts in order to save money on these regular postings.

The reason why the post office offers discounts for these businesses is the uniformity of the addressing allows them to put the mail through their high speed sorting machines rather than having to hand sort and pass on some of these savings to the customer.

There are some additional requirements in order for your business to qualify for this service relating to both the addressing (this includes print skew and some other technical requirements) as well as the types of mail that can be sent including only small and small plus categories of mail

You can either use your postage meter or your account with the Post Office to pay for this service, however please keep in mind, should you wish to use your account, you will need to fill out a variation on the standard form which is available from your Post Office.

In order to help our customers to gain access to the discounts offered by the clean mail service without the worry about all of the technical requirements, Everyday Mail has started a boutique mailhouse service that can not only advise on clean mail matters but also help you with printing, folding and inserting all of your documents no matter how large or small the volume.

You can learn more about our boutique mailhouse service by clicking here or just give us a call on 1300 624 562 to discuss your specific requirements in more detail.

Recently at the time of writing the Post Office rolled out some rather large changes in the way in which it charges its customers for regular mail. This has been in response to rapidly declining letter volumes in Australia and the resulting losses in their business.

You can read more detailed information about this by clicking here but essentially the Post Office was faced with a choice to either limit the number of times that they deliver mail from each day to three days per week or to introduce two pricing levels for regular mail as well as raising the price of postage.

In the end the option that was taken was the second one and two speed mail was introduced in Australia. Essentially this system gives Post Office customers the choice to send mail as they have been doing with 1-2 day delivery standards for a premium price or alternatively send regular mail at a reduced price if they are willing to accept 3-5 days delivery standard.

The feedback that we have heard from customers is that the majority have simply decided to place the required “Priority” print on all their stationary and accept the higher pricing in order to maintain the established delivery standard of their postal items.

Other customers however, are more sensitive when it comes to the size of their postal bill have opted to maintain two sets of stationary, one for priority and one for regular and leave it up to their staff members to use their discretion as to their delivery requirements which envelope that they use.

A third group of customers have opted to go the completely “Regular” mail route in order to keep their postage costs to a minimum and simply use the Express Post service or door-to-door couriers for their urgent items.

Each of these methods have their pros and cons as once staff members are offered a choice, there is a possibility that they could exaggerate the urgency of delivery of their items and use the costly premium service when the regular service would meet their needs simply because of convenience.

So which method is best? We feel that it is simply too early to tell but the consensus from our customers is that the difference between the two speeds of mail is not significant enough for them to consider using regular only or a combination of the two speeds so they are opting to convert completely to use priority only and adjusting their stationary orders to reflect this.

If you are unsure of the service that best suits your requirements wee are happy to help, please click here to contact us or alternatively feel free to call us on 1300 624 562 at any time.

This seems to be a common issue for many businesses that we speak to whether they are using a company to collect their outgoing mail or if they are sending a staff member to lodge the mail each day.

If you are using a service to collect and lodge your outgoing mail many businesses today in the interest of saving costs are opting for the courier to collect their outgoing mail in the morning when their incoming mail from the business PO Box is delivered. This seems like a great deal as the mail courier only has the visit their business one each day and therefore will charge less than if they had to visit once in the morning to deliver mail and return again in the afternoon to collect.

The side effect of this which many businesses do not consider is that all of your outgoing mail will be delayed by a day as todays mail will not reach the postal system until tomorrow. So if you are utilising Post Office services such as Express Post to get items there the next business day, you are simply wasting money paying for this premium service. The other alternative is that for these urgent items you send a staff member home early to find a yellow post box to make sure the urgent item is posted on the same day.

Either scenario is not great for a business as you are either wasting money on a premium postal service and not getting the benefit or you are wasting money allocating unproductive and menial tasks to a staff member.

Even if you are not paying a courier company to collect and lodge your outgoing mail, the issue of paying a staff member to do unproductive and menial tasks still exists. Even as many of our customers have told us, this function is part of a specific staff member’s job description, when you critically think about it, still presents some issues for business. What redundancies does your business have in place for when this staff member is sick or takes annual leave? Does your mail process break down and not lodged at the post office if this happens? You may be surprised as to how many other businesses have admitted to us that this happens more often than you might think.

So what is the solution, well naturally you can consider a mail courier service to visit your office twice per day and then you will never have to worry about the issues mentioned above. If you are already using a courier service and this is impractical for you due to budget issues, it may be time for you to do a review on this service, it is likely that you will discover as many of our customers have that you are paying far above market rates for your mail courier service.

So, why not get in touch today to discuss your specific circumstances and how we can help you to improve your mail processes by clicking here or alternatively call us on 1300 624 562.

With the proliferation of internet banking in today’s world it is a wonder that people visit bank branches at all anymore.

Our customers tell us that this is not the case and here is why:

Many businesses still continue to pay their invoices via cheque rather than direct transfer, the reasons for this are a little unclear however one possibility is that it gives an extra week or so before the funds leave their account which has a positive effect on their cash flow. Perhaps your business does the same thing for this reason or another one?

Regardless of the reasons, the fact is that many businesses are receiving cheques on a daily basis and if we look at the other side of the coin, the sooner that you can deposit the cheques to your financial institution, the sooner the funds are cleared having a positive effect on your cash flow.

Business is a strange beast right? However, the part that many businesses don’t consider in this paradox is the cost of sending a staff member to the bank every day to deposit their cheques. Sure banks have quick deposit facilities available so that you don’t have to stand in a line but these come with their limitations as well as you need to get your banking there before 4pm for it to be processed on the same day.

The issue that presents itself here is that unlike mail, it is impossible to send a staff member to the bank on their way home (providing they are working typical office hours) so the only option is to go during the day. The obvious side effect of this is the opportunity cost of the more productive tasks that they could be doing rather than visiting the bank.

Top that off with many staff members running personal errands whilst they are out of the office, the cost of sending a staff member to the bank each day is north of $30 per day according to our customers.

Everyday Mail provides a daily or ad hoc banking service which allows your business to take advantage of the cash flow benefits of depositing your cheques on the same day that you receive at a fraction of the cost of sending a staff member to do it which you can read more about by clicking here.

If you have any questions about our banking or any other of our services, please click here to get in touch with us or call us on 1300 624 562.

Recently we were presented with this problem from a customer so we thought we would share the answer so that it might benefit more people. What they told us was they were able to access most of their mail first thing in the morning from their PO Box (this would apply regardless if you were using a competitive service or were sending a staff member to collect the mail). The confusing part was they were receiving a delivery from the post office of another lot of mail usually around lunch time which was frustrating because this late delivery often contained urgent mail.

What we discovered was occurring is that the second delivery was actually mail that was addressed to that customers physical street address and not to the PO Box address. As it was to be delivered to their street address, it was allocated to the stereotypical postie that we see around on foot, or bikes and there is no urgency placed on the delivery of this mail because it is to be delivered to a business, it receives the same treatment as the mail that you receive at your home.

So, we needed to discover a way in which we could help that customer to get all their mail in one delivery and first thing in the morning. Redirection was not an option as often if can lead to mail being held up and delayed in the post office system for a few days.

What we discovered is that as mail couriers, we could get access to the street addressed mail sorting centres which is where all the posties congregate to collect the mail for their runs and could intercept our customers street addressed mail at this point first thing each morning.

From here, the solution was simple to design for this customer, we simply visited both the sorting centre and their PO Box each morning, combined all of their mail into a single postage tub and delivered to them at the time that suited their business each morning – Simple.

So if having your street addressed mail delivered to you at lunch time is an issue for your business, please don’t hesitate to contact us on 1300 634 562 or click here to contact us to arrange a no obligation discussion about how we might be able to help.

As you are aware there are a lot of courier companies available for you to choose from when it comes to sending parcels across the country and the world as unlike the letter market which is a monopoly, the letter market is completely deregulated.

With that being said, many businesses overlook sending their parcels through the Post Office and opt for private couriers as on face value, their prices seem to be far cheaper. However, as many of our customers have discovered, this is not always the case.

With declining revenues from letters and the rise in parcel business spurred through e-commerce, the Post Office has been forced to rethink its parcel service in order to remain competitive. So what does this mean for you the consumer? It means if you are sending a reasonable volume of parcels (in the case of the Post Office – more than 20 per week) then if you ask there are a few ways to save money on your postage as outlined below.x`

Reduce Your Businesses Spend On Parcels – Method 1

Get a contract parcel rate with the Post Office. This to some business is considered as the “old way” of doing things however it is still a viable ways for businesses to save money in this area. Essentially what will happen here is the Post Office will have a look at not only the raw volume of your parcel spend but also into the sizes and destination of your parcels and work out where you are spending the most amount of money. For these key areas they will generally offer you a discounted rate in order to remain competitive and to discourage you from shopping around for the cheapest courier company in order to send each item individually.

The best part about examining this method is that all you have to do is make an appointment with your Post Office business manager and tell them that you are considering using them to send out your parcels and they will more often than not, offer you a discount when compared to their published rates. In some cases this discount can be up to 40% so it is well worth exploring.

Reduce Your Businesses Spend On Parcels – Method 2

Get an E-Parcel with the Post Office. This differs from the Contract agreement outlined above as you will be required to print labels for all of your parcels using the bespoke system developed for the Post Office. Despite the extra processing requirements, this does add a couple of key advantages when compared to the Contract Parcel Rate.

Firstly, your business will be able to track the progress of your parcels using the Post Offices online service as each item is given a unique identification number. This is impossible using the Contract Parcel Rate as when you lodge your items using this service, you are simply filling out a lodgement form as you may be used to doing with your regular mail.

Secondly, the system that the Post Office has developed actually has some good functionality when it comes to analytics and reporting of your parcel spend allowing your business to effectively manage it and align with your objectives and outcomes.

Thirdly, the e-parcel system allows the post office to view analytics of your parcel spend in detail and as your spend increases they are likely to offer you increasingly greater discounts in order to retain your business.

If you would like some more information on how to reduce your businesses parcel spend – click here to contact us or give us a call on 1300 624 562

With the rising cost of postage, businesses are continually looking for ways to save money on their postage. Although mail volumes are continuing to decline as businesses convert to electronic means to send their transactional and promotional correspondence, many businesses are either stuck in a transitional period as they update their systems to cater for this or worse their customer base or systems will not allow for this transition to take place at all.

To help these customers out we wanted to share some of the methods that our customers are using to reduce their postage bill in the hope that we can simply help you to do the same.

Save Money On Your Postage Tip 1 – 2 Speed Mail

Recently the Post Office released a 2 speed mail service which gives you the option to choose if you want your mail delivered within 1-2 business days for metro areas as has been the case in the past or if the mail is non urgent and does not need to be delivered for 3-5 business days you can use the cheaper service.

So the question for you here is exactly how urgent is the mail that you are sending? Are your employees simply sending mail using the priority service because this is what they are used to doing? Sure, there is a little more involved to have the options as the markings on the envelopes that you use are different, however with some training and education of your staff, this has helped some of our customers to reduce their postage bill.

Save Money On Your Postage Tip 2 – Bulk Mail

There are many different options available from the Post Office to get discounts by sending bulk mail. At the time of writing, the Post Office classifies bulk mail as sending more than 300 items of the same postage category (ie small letters) at the same time. Options for bulk mail discounts include Clean Mail and Pre Sort Letters which offer savings up to 20% of your postage costs so they are well worth looking into. If you would like a free mail consultation about how you can use bulk mail to save money on your postage bill, click here to contact us.

Save Money On Your Postage Tip 3 – Bulk Parcel Contacts / E-Parcel

If you regularly send a lot of parcels (amounts of as low as 20 per week are classified as bulk) then there are some quiet significant discounts available to you from the Post Office. The reason that this has been of interest to many of our customers is that unlike the letter market where the Post Office has a monopoly, they are forced to compete in the parcel market. Thus, the discounts on offer are far more significant and if your business is sending a lot of parcels we strongly encourage you to explore this further or don’t hesitate to contact us if you want some personalised assistance.

It surprises us that despite using a mail courier service, many companies are still sending staff to the post office regularly to collect and order stationary items such as express post and registered post satchels amongst other items.

This seems counter-intuitive to us as the whole purpose of using a mail courier service is to keep your staff out of the post office.

To help in this area, Everyday Mail is able to collect your Australia Post stationary order along with your outgoing mail each afternoon and then deliver your order to you the following business day with the relevant charges assigned either to your credit card or your account with the post office.

This service is provided free of charge to Everyday Mail customers so why not take advantage of this and stop wasting your staffs time queuing up at the post office.