The face of the Post Office today has changed drastically and one needs to remember that it is a publicly owned organisation before understanding why the queues have become so long over the last few years.

It is a fact that the queues continue to grow to get served at the Post Office, I not sure about you but the last time that I visited during lunch time to collect an urgent parcel for one of our customers, I was in the queue for at least 20 minutes and that is time that I will never get back!

The reason for the line-up is that the Post Office is simply continuing to offer more and more services and products that people can utilise / purchase in their stores. This is because they have chosen to opt for a franchise model of expansion effectively creating a unique relationship comprised of both public and private members.

To support the best use of public infrastructure which the postal outlets are they are forced to take up public services such as taking passport photos and to supplement the franchisee’s income in a declining letter market they have turned to offering retail items in their stores, I am sure it won’t be long before you will be able to buy a surfboard at the Post Office!

So from a business perspective, it simply does not make sense to keep sending staff down to the Post Office to collect your mail as it is likely that they will get caught up in these ever growing queues when you receive a parcel that does not fit in your PO Box or they have to purchase Post Office stationary such as Express Post Satchels.

Everyday Mail provides a price effective service designed to keep your staff out of the post office which not only saves your business money but also helps to avoid a whole range of other issues and business risks that may not immediately be apparent that you can read about by clicking here.

So why not contact us today to arrange a no obligation telephone interview to discuss your specific requirements or call us on 1300 624 562?

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!

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.

Recently Australia Post released details about some of the likely changes that the letter industry will see in 2015. For further details of this, please visit Australia Posts Website By Clicking Here.

A summary of the change is as we already know they introduced a 2 speed letter service which tiered pricing to help assist them to cover some of the losses in what is widely agreed is a declining letter market.

However this was only the first of the changes that the Post Office proposes to introduce. They were faced with a decision that is common with most businesses and that is if a portion of your business is running at a loss, the two things that you can to is:

• Decrease Costs
• Increase Revenue

So, on this basis the Post office considered a 3 day per week delivery service against the everyday model that it currently operates on. Naturally this possibility would reduce their costs associated with the labour of their “Postie Network”

From the report that they issued last month, it appears that they have chosen to go down the other path and appeal to the ACCC to raise the base price of a letter from $0.70 to $1 later this year. They are promoting that even after this impending price rise, Australia will still have one of the lowest costs of sending mail in the developed world. This potentially is a matter that is open to debate, however one thing that is for certain is that we will be paying more to send out our mail before the end of the year.

Now, what are going to be the likely effects of such a change? Are businesses going to invest even more resources into diverting their promotional and transactional mail into electronic format?

If this is the case, it is almost a self-fulfilling prophecy that we are setting in motion here. Let’s look at it this way, Australia Post is a monopoly that is required by law to provide a standard of service to a geographically diverse population. If, by increasing the price of a standard letter to cover costs in a declining letter market lead to more people and businesses using email then pretty soon in order to provide the same letter of service they are going to have to raise the prices again. As I said this is a possible never ending circle.

Sure the Post Office is able to supplement some of their letter losses through the more premium revenue generated through their parcel business but unless their share of this admittingly growing sector continues to grow then it is difficult to see any other alternative to more letter price rises in the years to come.

What are your thoughts? Is this the catalyst for your business to seriously considering putting more emphasis on converting to electronic mail?

It seems that there is a lot of confusion out there about this topic and it is quiet understandable. Many people would prefer to have their online purchases shipped to their PO Box so they can avoid the infamous “Sorry We Missed You” note.

The answer to this question is quiet simple. The Post Office offers PO boxes out to businesses on a lease – you can read more about why your business should get a PO Box by clicking here. As these boxes are only leased to businesses on a yearly basis and not sold to them, the Post Office retains control on who accesses them.

In addition, the Post office offers their own solutions for sending of parcels and items across the country and in some ways with all the changes that are going on in postage at the moment is specifically targeted towards online business.

So, with all this in mind, if the Post Office maintains control of the PO Boxes and as in competition with the courier company, they are not going to allow the competing courier company to deliver to their PO Boxes are they? So in essence, the Post Office is securing their own competitive advantage.

This makes perfect sense from a business stand point but in some respects it does not really help the consumer as depending on the courier company that they are using, they will either have to get their purchases delivered to work or simply wait out the 2-8 hour window provided by their courier company.

On a side note, there are a few companies out there that are doing some pretty amazing things in order to meet this demand from customers, and the continued growth in the online shopping space is sure to see more innovation such as the parcel lockers now available from the Post Office in the years ahead.

Everyday Mail provides PO Box Collection & Delivery, Express Post Banking Lodgement Services and a whole lot more.  If you are looking to save your business time and money by eliminating these menial tasks then why not give us a call today on 1300 624 562.

So your business has decided to make the plunge and arrange to lease a PO Box at your local post office or if you in the CBD at the GPO.

If you are still unsure if your business needs a PO Box, then you check out this post which deals with this issue.

The next question is how much does is this PO Box going to cost you? Well as you might imagine, the cost varies based on your requirements but to give you a rough idea, at the time of writing it ranges from around $120 to $1000 per year.

The differences in costs are associated to the following factors:

• If your business requires a specific box number or if you are happy to take the next number that is available, much like license plates on your car
• The size of the box that you require which is based on the amount of incoming mail that you are expecting to receive, just be logical with these, when you visit the Post Office the smallest boxes are actually pretty small and you can barely fit more than a few letters in them
• When you actually pay your renewal fee – the Post Office has an “early bird special” of sorts which at the time of writing offers a small discount should you pay your renewal by the 31^st March each year.

Please be mindful that there is an establishment fee for new customers of just under $30 which you will need to factor into the equation when making your decision.

As you will soon realise after opening up your PO Box, either yourself or a staff member will need to visit the post office each morning to collect the mail – most often this is done on the way to work. This can quickly become a pain especially when things get busy or when someone is off sick a visit to the Post Office gets put on the back burner and important mail such as cheques are delayed.

Everyday Mail provides a cost efficient mail courier service to ensure that your mail is delivered to your business on-time every day, so why not contact us today on 1300 624 562 to see how we can help your business to save time and money.

The world of sending postage is set to take a big turn in 2015 and Everyday Mail is here to help and provide free advice.

It has been widely reported in the media that the Post Office is facing rising losses in the letter section of its business and these losses can no longer be offset by the revenues it receives from the growth in their parcel business which has been raising steadily due to growth in the online shopping sphere.

So what does this mean for the consumer?

Put simply it means that in order to stay afloat, the Post Office is going to need to raise its base price it charges for someone sending a standard letter which will have a flow on effect through all of its products in its range. The price for a standard letter is likely to rise to at least $1.00 by the end of the year which is a far cry from the $0.50 only a few years ago.

So does this set the stage for the end of the mail industry as we know it and allow for email to finally take over? Well – sort of in our opinion. Many businesses if they have not already are at least considering migrating their invoicing and billing systems across to an electronic format. However, the perception is that for marketing purposes, the electronic format still does not have as high of a response rate as the printed letter and envelope.

Despite the higher response rate in direct mail, businesses are going to have to take much greater heed in the cost of their promotions and their spend on mail generally.

To help companies as they begin to become more cost conscious, some of the auxiliary postal spends such as the cost of mail courier services will begin to be scrutinised more closely. Many companies have been using the same mail courier service for many years and only when they have been approached by a company such as Everyday Mail, they have realised that they are paying well over the odds for this type of service.

So, one way that your business can prepare to at least offset some of the impending price increases at the hands of the Post Office is to like many other companies that we have been able to help, do a review on this service. Many companies have been able to reduce their costs by as much as 20-40% as well as reducing their actual postal spend as we have been able to guide them as to the best way to prepare their mail an access Post Office discounts using our many years of experience in the industry.

So what are you waiting for? Get in touch with us today to arrange a no obligation review – after all what have you got to lose?

Businesses often wonder why they should get a Post Office Box in the first place, the question that they ask themselves is why not have all of my mail delivered directly to my street address? So the team here at Everyday Mail thought that we would collect some of the main reasons that we have heard from our customers over the past few years.

1)      Delivery times – when the sorting is completed by the Post office in the morning (usually between 6:30-7:30am the mail either goes in one of two directions. One way is that it is placed in one of the PO Boxes ready for the customer to collect or else it is given to one of the Posties that your see around either on foot or motor bikes to deliver to your street address. The issue for customers here is that the time that the street addressed mail is delivered completely depends on where you fit in the postie’s run and for many businesses this may be late morning or worse after lunch which does not fit in with their business requirement. So many businesses opt to have to seek out a Post Office Box Rental so they can access their important documents as early as possible.

2)      Image – Another reason for many smaller businesses to take up a Post Office Box Rental is to portray a larger business image to their customers rather than advertising that they are a home based business.

3)      Security – This, along with delivery times above is the major reason why businesses opt for a Post Office Box Rental. They are concerned about the postie leaving letters at the front door of their offices or in a mail box down in the basement of their building. So if you are dealing with sensitive and confidential information in your day to day operations, this should be a key concern for you.

So there you have it, the top 3 reasons that customers opt to rent a Post Office Box. At Everyday Mail we work together with our customers to bring them all of these benefits, without the drawback of having to send an employee down to the post office each morning to collect the mail so why not give us a call today on 1300 624 562 to discuss your requirements.

Recently, a customer who was sending their staff down to collect the mail from their PO Box each day asked us “why should they get a post office courier service ?” so the team here at Everyday Mail thought that we better go about answering this question.

Essentially there are many reasons why a business may engage a courier service to transport their mail from their PO Box to their business each day and the primary reason for this is to save time and money whilst allowing their staff to spend their time on more productive tasks. We thought however, we would focus on some of the not so obvious benefits of getting a post office courier service.

1)      Staff are not required to carry heavy items to and from the post office which is inconvenient for many people

2)      Did you know that if you are sending staff down to the post office each morning that this may be considered a work function and should there be an accident of any nature you may be liable for an expensive workers compensation claim?

3)      Many time, particularly in the metropolitan areas the mail is collected early in the morning as staff members are catching public transport to and from the office. This can happen before the Post Office has completed their sorting of the mail and lead to items being missed, in particular express post items – click here to read more about this.

4)      Your staff members may need to visit the Post Office multiple times as will be required to purchase stationary such as Express Post or Registered Post envelopes. A courier service can complete these tasks for you at no additional charge – click here to read more about this.

5)      Your Post Office Courier Service can act as an intermediary between your business and the Post Office making it easier to deal with lost items or special requests – click here to read more about this

6)      Even if your business only sends out the odd bulk mail lodgement, you can arrange for ad hoc services which are far more convenient than sending staff members on multiple trips to and from the Post Office – Click here to read more about this.

So there we have it, some of the not so commonly thought about reasons as to why a business would get a Post Office Courier Service. Everyday Mail has been able to assist businesses to achieve all of these benefits and more on a daily basis and would love the chance to help your business to do the same so why not give us a call on 1300 624 562 today.

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.