Stuffing

Private mail carriers in Switzerland are not permitted to transport letters weighing under 50 g. ‘Stuffing’ means making a mailing heavier than 50 g to enable free choice on the mail market and thus allow you to benefit from price advantages.

Stuffing is required if you want Quickmail to deliver consignments that are lighter than 50 g.

How do I stuff consignments?

There are two ways to make a mailing heavier:

  • Simple Stuffing is achieved using heavier paper. A higher paper weight makes mailings feel higher quality and often gains a better response. This is frequently enough to offset the additional cost of heavier paper.

  • With productive Stuffing, you can additional enclosures to your mailing, add additional pages to an existing enclosure, or enclose a gift. Once again, our experience shows that high-quality enclosures generally achieve higher response rates.

Both stuffing solutions can improve the profitability of your mailings, as shipping via Quickmail alone offers potential savings of up to 15 % on postage costs.

How do I calculate the costs for the higher paper weight?

The rule of thumb in the printing industry is: 10 g more paper weight costs (at most) 2 centimes.

The best way to calculate this is with a practical example:

  • A mailing consists of an envelope, cover letter and payment slip, which together weigh 15 g, and a brochure in A5 format with 20 pages, which has a paper weight of 80 g/sqm and weighs 25 g. The mailing weighs 40 g in total. In total, the mailing weighs 40 g.

  • Now select a paper weight of 115 g/sqm for the brochure. The brochure will now be 44 % heavier and weigh 39 g.

  • For the brochure with 80 g/sqm you used to pay 22 centimes or CHF 220 per 1000 pieces for printing, for the heavier brochure you now pay 24 centimes or CHF 240 per 1000 pieces, i.e. 2 centimes more.

My printshop claims that 10 g more paper weight costs a lot more than 2 centimes extra.

Get other quotations or show your printshop on the internet how online printshops calculate if, for example, instead of a weight of 80 g/sqm a weight of 115 g/sqm is chosen.

My printshop claims that the print will even be cheaper despite the heavy weight.

This can indeed happen. If your brochures were previously printed on light paper that tears frequently, choosing a heavier type of paper will actually result in lower costs when printing.

We will be happy to advise you on your options for stuffing your consignments.

Call us on +41 58 356 44 00 or write to us at sales@quickmail-ag.ch.

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