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Direct mail marketing strategists cringe when the USPS inevitably declares postage costs must increase. The raise in postage directly affects companies’ budgets exponentially, forcing several companies into uncomfortable positions in maintaining those budgets. United Mail responds to increasing mail prices by offering businesses the option to commingle their mail.

Commingling mail, also known as presorting, will effectively save your company money and time. In order to grasp the purpose of utilizing commingling through United Mail, it’s first necessary to understand the way direct mail is usually delivered. It’s pretty complicated and normally involves several stops. Starting at the local USPS office, your mail is then delivered to a local Sectional Center Facility (SCF). From there, the piece is shipped to a regional Network Distribution Center (NDC). From that regional NDC, the direct mail arrives at the destination NDC. From that destination NDC, the mail ships to the destination SCF to be sent to the destination USPS. Finally, from this destination post office, the mail is sent to the recipient. If you think those are too many stops for your company’s important direct mail, you’re right. At each of these post offices, SCFs and NDCs, the direct mail is individually sorted, resorted, and shipped, increasing the likelihood that the mail will be delayed and will ultimately cost more.

Direct Mail Commingling

The process of commingling responds to this admittedly indirect way of sending bulk direct mail. United Mail offers companies the opportunity to save 10-20% annually by sending several direct mail pieces going to the same zip code together. Put differently, we presort mail pieces from more than one company to achieve USPS discount minimums for mail quantity collectively going to specifically targeted zip codes. We place mail coming from different mail streams into shared, common mail trays, eliminating the stops direct mail usually travels through. In other words, we make your mail stop less and move to its destination faster. We work to cut out sending your mail to local SCFs and NDCs so that your mail gets out more quickly and cheaper. As a company that provides commingling, we at United Mail sort the bundled mail in these common mail trays to save time when it reaches the post office. USPS offers substantive discounts for presorted mail, since it is much more concerned with delivering mail instead of sorting it.

To summarize, we

  • Blend mail pieces from several companies to achieve volume postage discounts
  • Presort the mail by its collective zip code
  • Follow the mail pieces with intelligent bar code technology
  • Compile the mail pieces into trays by their corresponding zip code group
  • Distribute the collective trays to either the destination USPS NDC or SCF

United Mail Commingling Services

Using state-of-the-art presorting technology called multiline optical character readers (MLOCRs), United Mail collects and then commingles your mail, taking each individual piece to sort it at either the NDC or SCF level depending on what we’ve gotten from other mailers. This practice offers your company a deeper postal penetration and opportunity for discounts. We take your mail, blend it with other mail going to the same zip code destination, and give it to the USPS to be delivered more directly and more efficiently. Our dedicated staff and effective hardware ensure that your mail gets to where it’s going on time, every time. What’s more is we’ll save you money while we do it. With a USPS site located conveniently within our facilities, we at United Mail guarantee your mail starts moving as soon as we’ve commingled it.

Let’s Talk about Commingling Mail

United Mail wants to ensure your business gets its mail out in the fastest possible manner. If you’re interested in taking advantage of our commingling opportunity, which guarantees a discounted and faster transit for your mail, contact us, or call us at 866-542-2107.

By Michael Phillips