Second class mail
Following on from happylittletulip's strange letter experience this morning, here's something that I can't get my head around.

Why do we have first and second class mail? Why two streams? As I see it, it can only make things harder for the Post Office. Here's my reasoning, albeit via gross simplifications:

All the mail is posted in the same box. It's sorted into two bundles, one for first class and one for second class. The first class mail gets sent on for delivery, together with the previous day's second class mail.

The following day, a new batch of mail arrives, and it's again separated, whereupon the first class mail is sent out with the first day's second class mail.

So the same volume of mail is being delivered each day, but in effect the second class stuff is deliberately being delayed. Wouldn't it just be easier to have a single class of mail, so removing the need to sort it into two streams, given that it's all got to be delivered sooner or later anyway?

Maybe I've got this entirely wrong. Perhaps there's a more logical reason. But until someone can explain it to me, I'm buggered if I can work it out.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Fri 4 Jul 2008, 14:20, 8 replies, latest was 16 years ago)

well, I just had a look at their website
First class mail is delivered in 1-2 days, and second class mail is delivered in 3+ days.

So, if your theory is correct, that means that the second class mail has to wait two days in the depot and not one, and anyway the first class mail might wait a day before being delivered, so in conclusion that means that royal mail are crap, and can't afford chairs for their offices so have to use big bundles of letters and parcels instead. Hence the need for two streams of mail.
(happylittletulip helpless and delicious, Fri 4 Jul 2008, 14:38, Reply)

Artificial Scarcity
Say you have a business where different customers have different needs e.g. a group of people who want their mail delivered by the next day, and another bunch who aren't that fussed as long as it gets there eventually. Also, because of the indifference of the latter group they're not prepared to pay that much.

If you make a standard next day service the only option, a lot of the second group of people might stop using the postal service. But if you offer them the same service at a reduced price then you have to do the same for the first group too.

By artificially hindering their service they get to have two different prices to attract different customers and, in theory, make more money.

Read "The Undercover Economist" by Tim Harford. It's worth it for the chapter on Cameroon alone.
( djtrialprice, Fri 4 Jul 2008, 14:42, Reply)

I guess it'd be difficult if they tried to treat all mail as first class,
And they can't treat everything as second class, either.
( Thinker, Fri 4 Jul 2008, 14:43, Reply)

And there's all the daft subdivisions as well now
Like - is it first class? well, in that case, is it smaller than this plastic square? and will it fit through this slit? and how much does it weigh?
(happylittletulip helpless and delicious, Fri 4 Jul 2008, 14:47, Reply)

@HLT
You know all that stuff that goes missing in the mail? That's what's made into tables and chairs, so they don't need the second class mail for that, otherwise they'd have to stand up to change it every day!

@djtrialprice - logical answer, thanks. I wondered about that sort of thing, but couldn't see how it was profitable to do it, by deliberately giving themselves extra work, for the cheaper mail. But I'm not an economist.

@Le Penseur - if all the mail's being delivered anyway, it wouldn't make a difference, surely?
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Fri 4 Jul 2008, 14:48, Reply)

so that's where my missing birthday present is
bastards.
(happylittletulip helpless and delicious, Fri 4 Jul 2008, 14:51, Reply)

Well,
as explained, some people will need a next-day service. Some people aren't in that much of a hurry.

A lot of post goes through Royal Mail. If they separate it into "urgent" and "not that urgent", they can prioritise.

Rather than assuming everything is urgent, they can divert all the stuff that isn't all that important, put it on a slower track, it'll get delivered when it gets delivered. If the truck/van/bag is full, the second-class stuff can wait for the next outing.

A lot of stuff is sent second-class, particularly business post, spam, etc, so this does help free up more people to make sure first-class stuff is delivered on time.

I think it's all based on prioritisation, anyway.
( Thinker, Fri 4 Jul 2008, 14:56, Reply)

Yes
I can see the logic in that, having thought about it. It allows the mail flow to be evened out, such that if there's a lot of it, the first class stuff gets priority, and the second class stuff fills the quieter periods.

Thanks all, for clearing up something that's puzzled me for ages.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Fri 4 Jul 2008, 15:00, Reply)