Mail Fulfilment Services
When deciding on mail fulfilment services, you should keep a few things in mind. Consider your product’s weight, size, and any packaging required. The number of items that need to be sent out and how soon they need to be delivered will also need to be determined. All of these factors will impact your decision on which mail fulfilment service to use.
- What type of product do you need to mail out?
- How many products do you need to mail out?
- Do you need to mail domestically or internationally?
- What are your timescales?
- What is your budget?
- How much does your product weigh?
Mail Fulfilment Options
You need to consider your product’s unwrapped weight first. Using this information will help you determine the best method of mailing that will be most effective for you and may have an impact on how you mail it. You will need to consider the type of packaging you use if your product is close to a size or weight boundary. In turn, this will affect the overall cost of mailing.
There are four main fulfilment options:
- wrapping in poly-wrap
- naked mailings (no outer to protect the mailed item)
- stuffing into envelopes
- paper wrapping
Paper wrapping is in its infancy and has been developed to be a more environmentally friendly solution to poly-wrap. However, very few companies currently offer it and is fairly expensive. COnsequently, we have not covered it in any detail here.
Getting wrapped
Poly-wrapping is a great way to protect your mailings, regardless of size or shape. It’s perfect for everything from A6 brochures to large tabloid newspaper sized mailings, and can even accommodate machinable inserts.
It is a waterproof and highly durable option. As the contents are openly displayed it is a great option if you want to excite the recipient! Poly-wrap is light weight, from around 2gm for an A4 poly-wrap compared to 10gm for an envelope, so as a lighter option it can reduce your mailing costs.
Poly-wrap can be printed on, for example addresses, marketing text, logos and mailing barcodes. This means that address inserts are not always required.
Poly-wrapping is fast. Some machines can wrap around 12,000 items per hour. This makes it ideal for large direct marketing fulfilment projects as well as smaller bespoke projects.
Recyclable and degradable poly-wrap is available and takes less time to degrade than standard plastic wrap. New non-plastic wrapping is becoming available and offers a green alternative to paper, but it may not suit every budget.
Stuff it
Enveloping your content in an envelope is often chosen when the information is sensitive and requires confidentiality. As a paper option, mailing addresses can be printed along with logos and other information. A range of fonts and colours can be used to match any branding.
Envelope insertion can be done either by hand or machine. Depending on the machine configuration, up to 20 additional inserts can be included.
You can recycle your used envelopes with paper recycling. Envelopes are made of heavier paper than poly-wrapping, but some Royal Mail mailing discounts can be higher on envelopes than poly-wrap.
One downside to using envelopes is that they may not offer the same durability as poly-wrap. They can get crushed or torn in the mailing process, especially if they get damp which can affect the quality of the contents.
When planning your print project, it’s important to consider how you’ll fulfill and distribute your finished products. In some cases, it may be possible to do everything in-house. However, most significant catalogue, magazine, and brochure printers offer some form of mail fulfilment. Keep in mind that their expertise is limited to their in-house abilities and they may not be as familiar with postage solutions as an outside provider.
What next?
Please contact us to discuss the mail fulfilment services you are looking for so we can advise you on what options will provide the quality and pricing required.
Contact us now for a no obligation quotation, either by call 01323 419701 or email simon@magazineprintingcompany.com.
Feel free to look at our other blog posts on Brochure Printing, Fulfilment, Direct Mailing, Paper, Printing and News.