What defines “low volume”?
If you have made the decision to invest in table top printers, letter inserters, and meter machines to print your letters in-house, it is most likely the result of thinking that your mailing volume is small enough to handle this yourself. It may also be a result of failed attempts to outsource this process.
Outsourcing low daily mailing volume is challenging for many mailers. However, as challenging as it is for mailers, it is even more challenging to letter vendors. The result is typically higher prices and lower service levels. More often than not, this leaves you on the side lines without any access to the advanced production technologies that would ultimately give you a competative advantage.
Why is this?
As large production print facilities acquire larger and faster production machines, implement higher security standards and cutting edge technologies, they have no choice but to look for larger clients to justify these additional facility costs. What happens to the small mailer that processes 100, 200, or 500 letters per day?
The only available economic alternative that makes sense for these letter vendors is to institute pricing policies that include:
- Minimum production requirements
- Higher implementation costs
Or operating policies that include:
- Minimum allocation of customer service resources
- Expanded turnaround windows
In-house letter production isn’t much better. The costs are much higher than you would suspect with low productivity as the driving factor. Whether you are mailing 50 letters or 100 letters in a given day, the time allocated is pretty much the same. An efficient operator would typically need an hour to complete this task. At a minimum wage rate of $9/hr, the cost per letter averages $ 0.12 . Add in consumables (paper, envelopes, toner) , your costs are approaching $0.25/letter. Add in postage and you’re approaching $0.75. Still–not that bad if this is all you’re thinking about.
Your real costs start to immerge when you start adding —
- Ordering and storing consumables
- Equipment maintenance and repairs
- Quality control
And think about it… you prepay all of it! Are you really getting the return on this investment?
What if there was a solution that lowered your costs? What if this solution not only lowered costs but also created access to the same production technology that high volume mailers get to enjoy every day?
Understanding Pagus Workflow Aggregation