Postal Riders and Raiders

by W. H. Gantz

The paper on which this advertisement was printed weighed 0.132815 ounce. The half of it printed with the advertisement weighed 0.06640625 ounce.

One million seventy thousand copies of the Saturday Evening Post were sent through the United States mails, so that the postoffice transported 4,440.9 pounds of this advertisement. At 9.23 cents per pound—the pound cost of transporting and handling second-class matter given by the Postoffice Department—the total cost of giving the postoffice services to this advertisement was $409.90; postage paid at 1 cent a pound, $44.41; loss to postoffice, $365.49.

THE POSTOFFICE’S GROSS AND NET GAIN FROM FIRST-CLASS POSTAGE CREATED.

3,700 inquiries were received by the Review of Reviews.
3,700 2-cent stamps for inquiries	$74.00
3,700 acknowledgments under 2-cent stamp	74.00
Six follow-ups to 3,700 inquiries under 2-cent stamps	444.00
1,776 inquiries sent 10 cents in stamps	177.60
740 sales are made, each involving 12 bills and 12 remittances, under 2-cent stamp	355.00
The 3,700 names of inquiries will be circulated at least three times a year for five years, under 2-cent stamps (a practical certainty of twice as many circularizations)	1,110.00
Total gross direct sales of 2-cent stamps from advertisement	$2,234.60
Profit of 40 per cent, according to profit percentage of Postmaster General on first-class postage	$893.84
Direct loss in transporting and handling advertisement, cost figured at 9.23 cents a pound, income at 1 cent	365.49
Ultimate minimum net gain to postoffice in having carried this advertisement	$528.35

MORE SPECIFIC EXAMPLES OF PROFITABLE POSTAGE ORIGINATED BY MAGAZINE ADVERTISING.

Names of concerns are withheld here. The original documents on which these statements rest are in the possession of the postal committee of the Periodical Publishers’ Association, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York City. These are only a few samples of hundreds that have come, and are printed to suggest the details of the methods by which national magazine advertising far more than pays its way when sent out through America at 1 cent a pound second-class postal rate.

“Mr. E. W. Hazen, Advertising Director.

“Dear Mr. Hazen: During the year 1910 we paid the Postoffice Department for carrying our first, third and fourth class mail matter the sum of $496,749.88. We shipped during the year 1910, 1,717,514 packages. Of these 809,781 were sent by mail and 907,733 by express. All of these would have been sent by parcels post if the postal rates and regulations permitted. We paid the express companies for the transportation of the packages referred to above $347,392.30.”

The above statement covers only mail matter sent out of this house. The figures given are accurate. Any statement of the number of pieces of mail matter which we receive would be approximate, but we can safely state that it was in excess of 4,500,000 pieces of first-class mail matter. This estimate is entirely conservative.

Here is another postal bill of one of the many great “mail order” magazine advertisers—a company which sells excellent clothing to women who can not come to the great cities and their department stores. The president of the company writes: