So I’m sending a copy of some RV magazine back to my father-in-law in a manila envelope. (He subscribes to it, let me borrow this issue b/c I was traveling to one of the places it mentions, and I forgot to give it back to him.) Now, his name and address are printed right there on the front label, and–near as I can tell–there’s no postmark to say when it was mailed. (Though there is some esoteric gobbledygook text and bar code stuff going on…)
Would it have been possible for me to just drop the magazine in a mailbox and have it wind up at his door? Or would the USPS refuse to deliver it, since it didn’t come from the publisher’s drop-off point/some allotted time period when the postage is viable has passed (one not readily visible on the label/postage info.)? Would it be doomed to the dead-letter office?
I figured that much (and just dropped it in the mail, in an envelope, with proper postage). Just curious what was to keep someone from attempting this. A “how does the mail system work?” question.
Magazines marked that way are sent periodical rate and drop shipped. That means the printer or mailhouse (however the publisher wants to do it) bundles them up (post-labelling) according to the zone and zip and carrier route and actually trucks them to a post office for shipment.
So it’s not like Newsweek just heads out to the corner mailbox when they publish each week. There are enormous forms and money changes hands and that sort of thing.
So a postman would know something fishy is up if he encountered that magazine in a mailbox.
I recently received the following on the front of one of my magazines…
“Please take a moment to renew your FREE subscription to Northeast Dairy Business magazine. Just sign, complete and send back this postage-paid card. Postal regulations and our circulation auditors require us to have a current signed card for each mailed copy.”
Now frankly I don’t remember any of my other magazines requiring my signature. Now maybe their ‘circulation auditors’ need my signature but is there a postal regulation requiring it ? What makes me more suspicious is that the card included several market related questions on top of the required signature line. You didn’t have to answer the questions of course but it looked to me like they were trying to get some market research rather than just the signature.
I’ll tell you I often get mis-delivered mail in my box, and just drop it in any mailbox. They will send it to the correct address.
Since I have a PO Box, there are many thousands of addresses identical to mine, except for city, state and zip.
When people mis-remember their zip, the city and state is ignored and it goes to another person’s box.
Since this happens all the time, postal people are not inclined to question you.
In order for the magazine to charge market rates for its advertising, they need to prove to the advertisers just what the circulation is. With magazines that you pay for it’s easy; they just look at the subscriber list.
A lot of trade publications are free to people in the trade. But the advertisers in those books want to know who and how many people they reach, therefore they rely on the Audit Bureau of Circulation to let them know how many copies go out each month. If you don’t send back that card every year, your subscription will be dropped. Without your signature, the publishers could give the advertisers any arbitrary number for their circulation figures
As for the post office needing to know, it could have to do with those mags being sent at regular periodical rate, or a higher one.