Pitney Bowes Opens New Direct Mail Presort Services Operating Center in Duncan, SC

STAMFORD, CT—June 12, 2014—Consistent with its strategic goals and long-term growth initiatives, Pitney Bowes is expanding its direct mail presorting capabilities in the Southeastern United States. Duncan, SC, is now home to Pitney Bowes’ fifth U.S. Direct Mail Presort Services Operating Center, filling a void in a previously underserved market and enabling more mailers to benefit from the cost savings, quality assurance and predictability of Pitney Bowes Presort Services.

“Pitney Bowes is experiencing strong growth by helping companies facilitate commerce and navigate the complexities of a physical and digital world,” said Debbie Pfeiffer, president, Pitney Bowes Presort Services. “For marketers, direct mail remains a critical channel, and is even stronger when combined with digital channels. Our expansion into the Southeast will help make direct mail a more affordable and effective communication tool for our clients.”

Responding to customer demand, Pitney Bowes decided to expand its existing Duncan, SC, facility and equip it to process direct mail. The investment reaffirms Pitney Bowes’ leadership in the direct mail space and is positioning the company to compete in an important market that is estimated to include billions of pieces of standard presort letters and cards annually.

Pitney Bowes’ direct mail expansion in the Southeast follows its recent expansion in the Northeast. In January, the company merged two centers in Bensalem and Langhorne, PA, into a new 180,000-square-foot facility in nearby Levittown.

Pitney Bowes’ other Direct Mail Presort Services Operating Centers are located in Corona, CA; Dallas; and Milwaukee. With effective transportation routes to and from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, the Duncan facility is improving services for existing Pitney Bowes clients and creating new opportunities for mailers nationwide.

Clients who use Pitney Bowes’ direct mail presorting services can realize:

• Reduced postage costs. Pitney Bowes’ large network of centers enables mailers to optimize their postage spend by leveraging sorting solutions, resulting in efficiencies and significant postage discounts.
• Operational cost savings. Mailers choosing Pitney Bowes Presort Services can reduce processing costs and redeploy resources to more revenue generating initiatives.
• Faster, more predictable in-home delivery. Pitney Bowes delivers mail closer to its final destination by presenting it directly to the United States Postal Service’s (USPS) Sectional Center Facilities (SCF) resulting in faster, more predictable and consistent in-home delivery. Pitney Bowes also offers Full Service Intelligent Mail BarcodeTracking and Self Delivery.
• Quality assurance. With its Total Quality Management (TQM) process and dedicated Quality Assurance teams at each site, Pitney Bowes meets the highest quality standards available and it is the USPS’s largest workshare partner.

“Pitney Bowes’ direct mail presorting services, and particularly our expansion into the Southeast, delivers more value to our clients,” Pfeiffer said. “We are excited about this expansion, the opportunity it represents for our clients, and what it says about Pitney Bowes’ continued leadership in providing presort services in the direct mail space.”

Statistics show that the growth in digital marketing is not resulting in a decline in direct mail. In fact, from 2009 to 2013, the total U.S. marketing spend on direct mail has stayed largely flat (Source: Winterberry). Moreover, 76 percent of consumers have made a purchase based on something they received in the mail in the last 12 months (Source: ExactTarget), and 86 percent of marketers say multichannel campaigns that leverage both physical and digital communication are “critical to their success going forward” (Source: Forrester).

To facilitate a discussion about best practices in direct mail, Pitney Bowes is sponsoring a Webinar on June 17, titled "Direct Mail Advantage – Delivering Higher Impact at Lower Costs." Barb Pellow, group director at InfoTrends, will share new research findings on direct mail solutions deployed by industry leaders and Todd Stoker, vice president of operations for Anderson Direct Marketing, will discuss proven techniques that are helping mailers create more engaging, personalized communications to improve response rates and lower costs. Click here to register.

About Pitney Bowes
Pitney Bowes provides technology solutions for small, mid-size and large firms that help them connect with customers to build loyalty and grow revenue. Many of the company’s solutions are delivered on open platforms to best organize, analyze and apply both public and proprietary data to two-way customer communications. Pitney Bowes includes direct mail, transactional mail and call center communications in its solution mix along with digital channel messaging for the Web, e-mail and mobile applications. Pitney Bowes: Every connection is a new opportunity.

Source: Pitney Bowes.