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Post by allanorn on Feb 26, 2019 18:06:01 GMT
www.prc.gov/dockets/document/105134I found this via a NYT article and skimmed through the section on correspondence. Every year the USPS surveys households regarding mail sent and received; this is the latest report I can find. It's from FY 2017 so it's about as recent as it gets for the moment. Couple of neat facts from a correspondence perspective: - USPS office visits are flat year-on-year even though there's been less personal correspondence sent via the post.
- The average american household sends four letters a year and receives less than ten letters a year.
- The bulk of personal correspondence received? Greeting cards.
- Household income strongly correlates to how many greeting cards you send in a year, while age and income of the head of household strongly correlate to sending overall personal correspondence.
The report puts letter-writing challenges like InCo into a different light!
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Post by distractedmom on Feb 26, 2019 23:40:34 GMT
FOUR? ? The average is FOUR sent letters a year? Do you think that includes Holiday Cards? My goodness, how much are people like us driving up that average? I counted for the last three years and I sent 151 in 2016, 161 in 2017 and 129 in 2018. If you add in cards, I'm at well over 300/year.
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Post by allanorn on Feb 27, 2019 0:56:42 GMT
FOUR? ? The average is FOUR sent letters a year? Do you think that includes Holiday Cards? My goodness, how much are people like us driving up that average? I counted for the last three years and I sent 151 in 2016, 161 in 2017 and 129 in 2018. If you add in cards, I'm at well over 300/year. Does not include cards. The average household - regardless of number of occupants - sends about 22 pieces of personal mail a year to other people (non-business). Half of that is holiday cards. Two-thirds of the remaining half are non-holiday cards. The definition of household is important too, because it's not per person. It's entirely possible that someone will send one letter or less a year on average to another (non-business) household and receive not very many in return.
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Post by allanorn on Feb 27, 2019 4:17:29 GMT
Adding: In the table data, based on diary estimates 516 million "letters from friends or relatives" were received, and 410 million were sent. This is explicitly different than greeting cards and "other personal correspondence". So yeah, four personal letters per household/year sounds pretty close and might even be a little high.
Other interesting tidbits: there's a screening form for participation in the diary. No PO Boxes. Questions include: * How many Forever stamps do you have? * How many Forever stamps has your household purchased within the past 30 days? * How many Forever stamps has your household used within the past 30 days? * How many Forever stamps have been lost or damaged within the past 30 days? * How many Forever stamps that your household currently owns do you intend to not use for postage (e.g. stamp collecting)?
Each question is allowed responses of 0-200, with two additional codes.
Your reward for completing the diary: $40 check, or 100 First-Class Forever stamps.
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Post by Gary S on Feb 27, 2019 5:28:37 GMT
Maybe a few of us should sign up and skew the results a bit higher. I could use $40 worth of stamps and I've started a letter log this year that would hopefully help with the record keeping.
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Post by distractedmom on Feb 27, 2019 16:36:11 GMT
Adding: In the table data, based on diary estimates 516 million "letters from friends or relatives" were received, and 410 million were sent. This is explicitly different than greeting cards and "other personal correspondence". So yeah, four personal letters per household/year sounds pretty close and might even be a little high. Other interesting tidbits: there's a screening form for participation in the diary. No PO Boxes. Questions include: * How many Forever stamps do you have? * How many Forever stamps has your household purchased within the past 30 days? * How many Forever stamps has your household used within the past 30 days? * How many Forever stamps have been lost or damaged within the past 30 days? * How many Forever stamps that your household currently owns do you intend to not use for postage (e.g. stamp collecting)? Each question is allowed responses of 0-200, with two additional codes. Your reward for completing the diary: $40 check, or 100 First-Class Forever stamps. Is this a thinly-veiled marketing survey? The cynic in me thinks that everything is a thinly-veiled marketing survey.
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Post by allanorn on Feb 27, 2019 16:54:59 GMT
Is this a thinly-veiled marketing survey? The cynic in me thinks that everything is a thinly-veiled marketing survey. I imagine not, at least from the perspective of providing a universal service that is a legal monopoly. They do have to keep track of trends to justify their price increases. Maybe a few of us should sign up and skew the results a bit higher. I could use $40 worth of stamps and I've started a letter log this year that would hopefully help with the record keeping. Given how the survey is designed, you have about 1/10000 chance of being selected. It works similar to jury duty and/or off-cycle census requests; they'll pick you. Data scientists and statisticians will scrub the data so any outliers are usually ignored; in fact in the Appendix they note that all received mail envelopes for first-class mail need to be sent on to USPS for data verification.
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Post by Gary S on Feb 27, 2019 17:35:07 GMT
in the Appendix they note that all received mail envelopes for first-class mail need to be sent on to USPS for data verification. Ha! Just trying to create more mailings by having you send them your envelopes. Not happening as I have a drawer full of received mail. While it is the culmination of several years worth of correspondence a years worth would still be a substantial amount to remove from the envelopes just because the postal service is paranoid and doesn't believe me.
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Post by allanorn on Feb 27, 2019 20:13:23 GMT
Ha! Just trying to create more mailings by having you send them your envelopes. Not happening as I have a drawer full of received mail. While it is the culmination of several years worth of correspondence a years worth would still be a substantial amount to remove from the envelopes just because the postal service is paranoid and doesn't believe me. I'm not that skeptical. After reading through the diary materials in the Appendix, I would say it's not intuitively obvious given their classifications. You have to sort received mail by first class, presorted standard, marketing mail, unaddressed mail, inbound mail from the government, and the like. We're generally more knowledgeable about this, and they try their best with pictures within the instructions, but I can totally see where the average Jane or Joe who just checks their mailbox every day and throws out most of the marketing materials without a second or first glance would get tripped up. A far easier process would be to have the household fill out a form or two with basic send/receive counts, provide everything the USPS needs to make their determination (e.g. envelopes, postal meter tags from packages, etc...) into one of the marked folders for that mail day, and at the end of the week throw it all into the postpaid Priority Mail bag they provide currently. USPS employees can be the experts for the data analysis. Also, I didn't mention this, but the diary is only for a week and they'll tell you what week ahead of time, so that their materials can get to you beforehand for review.
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Post by radellaf on Feb 28, 2019 6:45:19 GMT
Well that's discriminatory. Most of my best letters are written in cards. Guess I'm in the minority there.
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Post by distractedmom on Feb 28, 2019 14:17:39 GMT
Well that's discriminatory. Most of my best letters are written in cards. Guess I'm in the minority there. Interesting point, radellaf. I often begin a letter in a card and stick in a few sheets of stationery to finish it out.
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Post by Mia on Jul 25, 2019 11:37:38 GMT
I wonder... perhaps we should do our own little diary survey, over a week or a month. International. What questions should we ask?
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Post by Mia on Jul 25, 2019 12:51:31 GMT
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Post by Gary S on Jul 25, 2019 14:59:19 GMT
I wonder... perhaps we should do our own little diary survey, over a week or a month. International. What questions should we ask? 1. Incoming mail received: a) Personal letters or postcards (breakdown International vs. Domestic?) b) holiday greeting cards and non holiday greeting cards (breakdown International vs. Domestic?) c) Periodicals (magazine or newspaper) d) official mail (bills, governmental or business mail) e) advertising (addressed by name) f) mass marketing advertising (to the household of) g) anything not covered above (telephone directories, Amazon shipments, etc.) 2. Outgoing mail sent: a) Personal letters or postcards (breakdown International vs. Domestic?) b) holiday greeting cards and non holiday greeting cards (breakdown International vs. Domestic?) c) official mail (bills, governmental or business mail) d) anything not covered above (parcels)
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Post by Mia on Jul 28, 2019 12:34:22 GMT
There was a penpal questionnaire a PhD student sent out a while back. Perhaps I have a copy of it somewhere.
Other questions - I don't think I would want to answer how many forever (1st class/domestic) stamps I have! Instead, could ask if you have enough stamps for your needs for that month/week. Where do you write your letters? Where do you post them?...
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