Editing Mail (section)

==Business model==

The [[business model]] of modern postal operators can be broken down to four stages: (1) collection, (2) sorting, (3) transportation, and (4) delivery.<ref name="Kollara_Page_35">{{cite book |last1=Kollara |first1=Nandkumar |editor1-last=Finger |editor1-first=Matthias |editor2-last=Bukovc |editor2-first=Bernhard |editor3-last=Burhan |editor3-first=Muqbil |title=Postal Services in the Digital Age |date=2014 |publisher=IOS Press |location=Amsterdam |isbn=9781614993957 |pages=30–42 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lh_pAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA35#v=onepage&q&f=false |access-date=December 23, 2024 |chapter=The Journey of Postal Operators into Digital Services Using the Concept of Business Models}} (At p. 35.)</ref>

Collection is the gathering of mailpieces from various locations such as customer premises, [[post box]]es, and post offices.<ref name="Kollara_Page_35" /> Newly collected mail is normally not sorted immediately upon receipt and is instead taken directly in its unsorted state to sorting centers.<ref name="Kollara_Page_35" />

Sorting is the process of segregating mailpieces into groups based on their type and destination, so that they can be loaded onto an appropriate [[mode of transport]]ation headed in the general direction of their final destinations.<ref name="Kollara_Page_35" />  Traditionally, mail was manually sorted by hand, but it is increasingly sorted by automatic sorting machines.<ref name="Kollara_Page_35" /> The main dilemma faced by postal operators when organizing the sorting stage is whether to have a smaller number of large, centralized sorting centers (a [[spoke–hub distribution paradigm]]) or a larger number of smaller sorting centers along with a larger number of direct connections between all of them ([[point-to-point transit]]).<ref name="Kollara_Page_35" />

Transportation is the process of carrying mail from one place to another.<ref name="Kollara_Page_35" />  A mailpiece usually has to be transported from one sorting center to another sorting center, where it is often sorted to another transportation segment headed towards its destination address, until it reaches the sorting center that directly serves that address.<ref name="Kollara_Page_35" />

Delivery is the process of carrying mail to final destinations such as [[letter box]]es.<ref name="Kollara_Page_35" />  Sorting centers sort mailpieces destined for addresses in their immediate vicinity to [[Mail carrier|carriers]] serving those addresses.<ref name="Kollara_Page_35" />  Transporting mail to final destinations (the so-called [[Last mile (transportation)|last mile]] problem) is the most labor-intensive stage and accounts for up to 50% of postal operators' expenses.<ref name="Kollara_Page_35" />  Depending upon the final destination, carriers often use vehicles, their own feet, or a combination of both.<ref name="Kollara_Page_35" /> Postal operators try to control costs by presorting mail for carriers, so that they receive mail already arranged in the correct sequence for their designated routes; reducing the frequency of deliveries; or retiming deliveries so that they are spread throughout the day.<ref name="Kollara_Page_35" />