China Goes For Email To Snail Mail Plan
from the let-us-deliver dept
China Post is apparently introducing a new plan that they hope will make them some money. People with computers can send an email to the post office, who will then print it out and deliver it to the recipient. It costs a bit more than just sending a regular letter, but they’re hoping that small and mid-sized businesses will find it useful, though it’s unclear what the real advantage is here.
Comments on “China Goes For Email To Snail Mail Plan”
Cost?
I think the advantage might be that just because a piece of mail costs .37 for postage doesn’t mean that the cost of sending a letter is .37. That is especially true for many businesses who must either employ manual labor or purchase automated systems to print and insert a letter into an envelope. Total cost could run much higher so even if a company saved a couple of cents between their internal costs and the additional cost imposed by the email to snail mail system being offered, it would still make good business sense.
Of course, that assumes that the service is being offered at a cost that makes it economically attractive and that they actually do a good job processing the requests.
Advantages of Snail Mail
Also, some people consider snail mail to be “more serious” than email. If you get dozens of messages of day (which too many people do), it’s easy to ignore the odd important document (eg invoices). Most people receive far more email messages than snail mail messages, so the snail mail stands out.
A more specific example has to do with sending invoices via snail mail. It is often more reliable, not because of delivery issues, but because the recipient doesn’t print it and/or forward it to accounts payable right away.