Gotcha Gang Hit Curtailed by Quick Thinking

Fergus ON Tuesday August 14, 2007

On his way back from a fabulous weekend at the Fergus Scottish Festival and Highland Games, Inspector Hamish McMoney stopped in to visit some old friends at the fine Scottish shop, Wee Angus of the Glen. Through the course of their conversation, the inspector learned that the store had printed 50,000 postcards to promote their new “Kilt ‘n Kit” sale, but then ran into an unanticipated snag. As their too-familiar story continued, it became clear to the inspector that the Gotcha Gang was on the verge of scooping a quick $14,800 in straight cash!

The sale was slated to run from August 20 through September 14, with special offers on some limited quantities of in-stock tartans. With five shops across Canada, the folks at Wee Angus of the Glen had a broad client base of some 50,000 customers, with about 20,000 living throughout Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. They had been planning to mail the postcards as Addressed Admail, but quickly discovered that it would take about three weeks for the postcards to reach some destinations in western Canada.

“It was a sinking feeling,” says owner Robbie McLooney, “when we found out that many of the postcards wouldn’t be arriving out west until the sale was well underway. We were concerned that our customers out in the prairies and B.C. wouldn’t get the chance to take advantage of the sale. That’s about 2/5 of our entire customer base!”

Seeking answers from his local postmaster, McLooney came to the unfortunate realization that the only way to guarantee timely delivery would be to mail the western postcards via Lettermail.

Here’s why. The postcards were already printed with a finished size of 5.5” X 8.5” (about 140 mm X 216 mm). As Addressed Admail, these would be mailed at an average cost of about $0.36 per piece. However, since the dimensions of the printed cards exceeded the maximum for Standard Lettermail postcards (120 mm X 235 mm), they would be billed at the non-standard Lettermail rate of $1.10. That was $0.74 more than the $0.36 they were expecting and would have resulted in a total additional cost of $14,800 for western postcards!

Fortunately, upon hearing of the case, the quick thinking Inspector McMoney noted that, if mailed in 5 7/8” X 9 5/8” envelopes, the Lettermail postage would be a mere $0.52 per piece. He further concluded that if he allowed $0.15 for the cost to acquire the envelopes, printing and incremental mail preparation, that the total additional unit cost would be $0.31 ($0.52 -$0.36 + $0.15) rather than $0.74 ($1.10 - $.36). This represented a saving of $0.43 per piece with total savings of $8,600 for the 20,000 pieces to be delivered to western Canada.

Though the Gotcha Gang did slip away with $6,200, the quick thinking of Inspector McMoney, saved our friends at Wee Angus of the Glen $8,600!

“It’s unfortunate that the Gang got as much as they did,” McLooney says, “but we’re just glad that Inspector McMoney was around to ease the sting. We really want to thank him for his quick thinking!”

Overall our friends, like many others, learned two important lessons. First, it takes a lot longer to get Addressed Admail from Ontario to western Canada. Second, that there is a critical size difference between acceptable sizes for Lettermail postcards and Addressed Admail postcards. Nice to see the Gotcha Gang’s efforts thwarted for a change!

Please note that the Gotcha Gang is not Canada Post. The Gotcha Gang represents the effect of decisions that result in paying excess postage, labour costs or minimizing opportunity. Most of these releases are based on actual events, though dates and locations may be fictitious.