How Long Will Postal Mail Stick Around?

By Ron Wiener, CEO, Earth Class Mail

Reporters, investors, and other people I meet often ask me, “How long do you think it will it be before postal mail goes away altogether?” Now, I’m in the alternative postal-mail delivery business. I’m also a technologist who built his first computer in high school 26 years ago. Not surprisingly, I may be somewhat biased in my response.

The postmaster general of the U.S. Postal Service, answering this question in front of Congress, or the CEO of Pitney Bowes, answering this question in front of Wall Street analysts, might also be somewhat biased in those situations. In light of pressure from labor unions and millions of postal workers, the paper- and printing-industry lobbyists, the direct-marketing industry, and decades of calcified tradition and habit, I don’t envy these officials’ public-facing responsibilities.

The long-term future of postal mail is a question that the founders of Earth Class Mail in fact had to answer for ourselves before we sunk millions of dollars into launching a business that ostensibly relies upon the continued existence of postal mail.

For a long time my favorite quip response to this question was, “There’ll be a paperless office when we’ll have a paperless toilet.” That quip served me well until an experienced world traveler pointed out to me that paperless toilets now exist in Japan. I’m now looking into buying one so that I can reduce my carbon footprint and never buy toilet paper again.

The forces of change can arrive in the form of blazing electrons, like the Internet, or glaciers that might move only a few inches per year. Many people say that postal organizations are more likely to embrace change on a geological time scale. Read more

February 21, 2008 | Filed Under Earth Class Mail | Leave a Comment 

The Inconvenient Truth about Unwanted-Mail Removal Services

By Ron Wiener, CEO, Earth Class Mail Corp.

Just about everyone complains that he or she gets too much “junk mail.” And everyone’s definition of the term varies by personal interests. One person’s junk mail is another’s beloved Sunday night bedtime-reading companion. The outdoorsman’s cherished Cabela’s catalog is junk mail to his wife, whose Pottery Barn catalog is junk mail to her husband.

The definition of junk mail is simple: Poorly targeted, unsolicited advertising mail is “junk” – to the unwitting recipient, to the shareholders of the company that sent it, and, most of all, to the environment. Various studies show that only 20-30% of junk mail gets recycled – most of it winds up in our landfills.

The problem is now more palpable than ever, as two recent trends have shown. First, U.S. residential mailboxes are now so oversaturated with competing pleadings for disposable income that marketers complain of ever-declining response rates, against a backdrop of ever-increasing postage rates. This economically lethal combination has led thousands of catalog companies and direct marketers to either go bankrupt or shift their advertising dollars to online channels instead.

Second, tens of millions of dollars of venture capital have flowed into a rapidly burgeoning junk-mail removal industry, whose companies include Greendimes.com, ProQuo.com, 41pounds.com, CatalogChoice.com, among others.

Every time one of these websites gets coverage on CNN or ABC News, the printing and postal industries reach for the defibrillator. Consumers have been signing up for these services by the millions, including the industry’s own “Mail Preference Service” operated by the Direct Marketing Association. Read more

February 3, 2008 | Filed Under Earth Class Mail | 3 Comments 

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