Mailsort/Mailsorting - What is it?
Royal Mail's Mailsort services provide some significant postage discounts for bulk mailings. In order to achieve maximum mailsort discounts, each record must be sorted into one of 1400 'selection areas'. Once printed and enclosed, each letter must then be sorted into bags destined for the corresponding selection area.
Sophisticated software and data processing capabilities are necessary to sort the records into mailsort order, to produce all the printed reports, produce the Royal Mail bag labels and to maintain sortation throughout the job.
BTB Mailflight have many years experience of handling Mailsort mailings and liaising with Royal Mail on any account or posting issues.
As well as being a licensed provider of mailsorting services we are licensed to print barcodes for CBC Mailsort mailings, and are able to print Mailsort OCR approved fonts. Find out more about our data processing services.
Choosing the correct Mailsort service
Mailsort 1400 is suitable for mailings of 4000 or more. There are three Mailsort 1400 service levels.
Mailsort 1 is ideal for the most time sensitive of mailings. This service offers next day delivery and a discount of up to 14.4% off standard first class post.
Mailsort 2 is a 2 - 3 day service offering a discount of up to 13% off normal second class post.
Mailsort 3 is by far the most economic method of posting. With discounts of up to 24.6% off normal second class post, this service is ideal for non-urgent mailings with a delivery time of up to 7 days.
Mailsort services are aimed at bulk business mailings. Minimum volumes apply of 4000 or more letters or 1000 large letters/packets. Mailsort discounts achieved will vary from mailing to mailing.
The eventual Mailsorting discount will depend on the following factors:
1. The size of the mailing
The larger your mailing volume, the higher the discount you are likely to earn. A 4000 mailing using Mailsort 1400 class 3 would usually earn discount of around 15%. Whereas a mailing of 30,000 plus would be 22-24%.
2. The distribution of the mailing
If the 4000 mailing is all going to the same town, you are very likely to earn maximum mailsorting discounts on your mailing, whatever the size. Just a few letters to a wide range of sortation areas will earn a considerably lower discount.
3. The quality of your mailing data
If there are a lot of addresses with missing postcodes or mis-spelled address elements, these records will not be incuded in the mailsort sortation. This means that you will earn no discount on these records which will then severely effect your overall discount. It is essential that the quality of the data is assessed prior to Mailsort being used, with cleaning the the Royal Mail's own Postal Address File being a minimum requirement. BTB Mailflight provide the full range of data preparation services.
Mailsort 700 CBC
Mailsort 700 CBC works in much the same way as Mailsort 1400 with two added advantages. Using Mailsort 700 CBC will earn you an additional 2% discount. The second advantage is particularly useful to catalogue marketers. The Mailsort 700 CBC service offers a standard price right up to 100g. This can result in massive savings if your catalogue and inserts weigh more than 60g!
The following extra limitations apply if using Mailsort 700 CBC
- Items must not exceed 100g
- Items must be no larger than 240mm x 165mm.
- The minimum posting is 10,000 letters.
- Items must be able to bend (no pens or CDs can be mailed).
- Items must be less than 5mm thick.
- Items must not be polywrapped.
The Royal Mail website offers further information on Mailsort: Royal Mail's Mailsort services provide some significant postage discounts for bulk mailings. In order to achieve maximum mailsort discounts, each record must be sorted into one of 1400 'selection areas'. Once printed and enclosed, each letter must then be sorted into bags destined for the corresponding selection area.
Sophisticated software and data processing capabilities are necessary to sort the records into mailsort order, to produce all the printed reports, produce the Royal Mail bag labels and to maintain sortation throughout the job.
BTB Mailflight have many years experience of handling Mailsort mailings and liaising with Royal Mail on any account or posting issues.
As well as being a licensed provider of mailsorting services we are licensed to print barcodes for CBC Mailsort mailings, and are able to print Mailsort OCR approved fonts. Find out more about our data processing services.
The Royal Mail website offers further information on Mailsort.