This week we’ll cover the logistics involved in dropping your mail at the post office. First we’ll give you a quick overview of the process. Then we’ll cover the facility types that you can drop the mail at, the postage discounts associated with each one, and the timing involved to help you hit the correct in-home date for your mailing.

Once the postal paperwork is completed, the job is ready to be brought to the post office that the permit is held at. For a small job or one mailing to a local area, it is usually left there to be processed by the USPS. However, on larger jobs hitting areas outside of the local post office’s jurisdiction, the mailing is often cleared at the origin post office (i.e. the post office where the permit is held) and then trucked to one or more processing facilities. This helps speed up delivery and also allows you to save money on postage. Discounts are given depending on the type of facility the mail enters the system at.

The first type of facility is the Origin Post Office the mail is being verified at. These offer no destination discounts unless they also qualify as one of the facilities listed below, but you can still get large discounts for things like sortation and automation. This is how many small mailings are done, especially if the mail isn’t all going to one region.

The second type of facility is a Destination Delivery Unit (DDU). DDUs are the post offices that the mail carriers work out of, and are in every town across the country. Only Carrier Route Flats qualify for a DDU discount, because this type of mail is already bundled the way the carriers will be delivering it. Dropping these types of pieces off at the actual post office that the carriers will be working from allows you to get the best postage rate because the USPS does not have to do any trucking before delivery. It also gives the best response times because mail dropped at a DDU will often be delivered the next day, which is important for time-sensitive mailings such as newspapers and flyers.

The third type of facility is a Sectional Center Facility (SCF). Each SCF covers a small geographic area, usually covering anywhere between one and ten three digit zip codes. For example, the Portland, ME SCF covers any zip code starting with 039, 040, 041, 042, 043, 045, or 048. For a mailing hitting a large number of addresses within a single SCF, it’s usually worth it to truck the mail to the SCF to get a postage discount. Some large mailings may even hit dozens of SCFs across the country.

The fourth type of facility is a Network Distribution Center (NDC). NDCs cover larger geographic areas, with a total of 21 of these facilities in the country. Moderate-sized mailings often don’t have enough mail to be worth going to each individual SCF, but might have enough to be worth going to one or several NDCs to get a slightly lower postage discount than SCFs offer.

In addition to the postage discounts mentioned, dropping mail at the various facility types offers speedier delivery time on the mail. Standard mail doesn’t have any guarantees on delivery time, but the USPS does have targets it tries to hit. As we’ve already mentioned, a DDU can often get mail delivered the day after it’s dropped off, but the more accepted standard is 2 days. SCFs have a standard of 3 days, and NDCs have a standard of 5 days.

All of this information goes into deciding the best time and location to drop your mail. Call your favorite mailer to get your mailing planned today!