Mailing Equipment Continued…

Postage scales are generally available in 5-, 10-, 30-, 100- and 200-pound capacities and can be purchased separately or combined with a postage meter. Both manual and electronic scales are available; electronic scales are more expensive, but decrease the possibility of human error. When deciding on a scale, consider the weight and type of packages you will be sending and be sure to get a scale with adequate capacity. If you expect to send packages that exceed the scale's capacity, consider buying a scale that allows the required postage to be calculated from a manually entered weight. Some scales also allow you to compare rates between different carriers, such as the U.S. Postal Service, United Parcel Service, and Federal Express, and allow you to enter a zip code to determine zone-dependant rates for carriers like UPS. If you will be making foreign mailings, be sure to get a scale that can calculate foreign rates.

Postage Meters / Mailing Machines

A second useful mailroom tool is the postage meter. Postage meters produce professional-looking mailings while saving you the time and effort of stamping and sealing envelopes. A basic postage meter consists of two parts: a base or mailing machine, through which envelopes are guided to be stamped, and a meter, which often contains or is connected to a postal scale and which determines exact postage and prints out a stamp. By federal law, a meter cannot be purchased, only leased from the manufacturer.

The most basic postage meter bases require envelopes to be manually fed into the machine for processing. More expensive systems will feed envelopes automatically or semi-automatically. Feeding rates range from about 15 letters a minute to nearly 300, depending on the machine. Bases also seal and stack envelopes. Some have built in postage scales and more expensive bases offer a range of computerized features to increase the machine's automation and efficiency.

Letter Folding Machines

Promotional mailings can consist of hundreds or thousands of letters that must be folded and put into envelopes – a boring and time consuming task. For offices that do many promotional mailings or have large amounts of outgoing mail, a letter folding machine is an excellent investment that can save considerable time and money.

Letter folding machines range from low-end, manually-fed machines capable of processing a few hundred letters an hour, to automated systems that can handle 1,500 to 7,000. Letter folding machines come with two basic types of feeder: friction and vacuum. Friction feeders are cheaper, but can sometimes cause smudges on newly printed papers and tend to wear out with extensive use. Vacuum feeders do not smudge or wear out and work better with glossy and coated papers, but are far more expensive and sometimes available only on high volume models. Most letter folding machines are capable of a number of different folds, including c-folds, accordion folds, brochure folds, and more. They are also capable of handling several sheets of paper at once, but often have difficulty with stapled sheets.

Other useful features to consider include batch counters, which ensure that the machine does not fold more sheets than necessary, and inserters, which physically insert the folded pages into envelopes. Another important consideration is how the machine handles paper jams. Better-designed machines release rollers that provide easier access to the problem areas, saving considerable time and frustration when dealing with a paper jam.

Regardless of whether your business is a small home-based operation or a multinational company, mailing equipment will greatly increase the ease and efficiency of your outbound mailings.

By Kerry Given