Now it's virtual mail - at arm's length

PHIL REID/Dominion Post

YOU'VE GOT MAIL: Private Box's Steven Morey says the scanning service is ideal for people travelling and wanting to check their mail.

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Wellington mail services company Private Box says customers are giving its online mail option the stamp of approval.

Private Box is offering to scan customers' mail so they can access the electronic images through their own digital mailroom.

The company was initally set up to provide customers with a permanent physical address from which their mail could be forwarded.

Chief executive Steven Morey said the scanning service was ideal for people who were travelling and wanted to check their mail.

Customers got an e-mail alert saying they had received mail and who it was from. They could then instruct Private Box to open the mail and scan it, forward it, hold it, or recycle it.

The scanning service cost 50c a letter.

"That's a lot more affordable than other companies. In Europe it's one euro per page, whereas we do a letter - which covers up to five pages - for 50c."

Private Box charges 20c for each additional page.

A personal mail box costs $4 a month and business mail boxes cost $12 a month.

Mr Morey said scanning every letter would be "quite costly" for customers. "What we do intend to provide is scanning for the front page of each letter. Customers can see the front page and say, `All right, I want to read this letter'."

It took about five seconds to enter a letter into the system, and scanning took about 20 to 30 seconds per page. "If you're doing 1000 letters at a time you can just pump them through, everything is automated."

Private Box, based in Johnsonville with three staff, had about 1000 customers and a "good few hundred" were now having their mail scanned.

"Since we started the service we haven't marketed it, we've just advertised through our website. We've increased sales by a third and there's the potential to double it and triple it in the next six to 12 months.

"And lots of businesses are getting digital mailrooms, they could outsource that service to us, so the potential is there."

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