-——That’s been the case for well over 100 years!-——
The times have changed. In the last 5 years there has not only been a change in routine business mail but in business methods. Business has adapted to new internet communications. The demand for signatures on original documents has decreased dramatically. A document received requiring execution can in many many instances be signed in colored ink and scanned and returned. It is known to be an electronic transmittal.
The list of documents scanned and transmitted is nearly endless and enormous in volume. Tasks that took days or weeks or overnight can be accomplished in one day, even if the participants are on different continents. The reduction of mail extends also to DHL and the other document carriers. Business is neither done by mail nor by phone....... it is done by e mail, sometimes endlessly long e mail chains. Those of us who automatically pick up the phone more often than not get a voice mail box . The party called simply doesnot answer the phone. One quickly leans to send an e mail if any sort of quick response is required.
The other aspect of mail reduction is invoicing and payments. Regular customer invoicing is or can be done by e mail. The same is true pf payments. Money is zapped directly from customer bank to vendor bank with ease. No mail man is involved, no trips to the bank, etc.
When the recession ends, business mail will not appreciably increase. It is simply no longer required like it once was.
Then, there are millions of documents that must, if sent, be sent by mail, or sent by some other authorized transportation service under an exception. Checks fall into that category! Clearing house banks have such an exception.
Still, lawyers like to send their bills ~
Called putting the personal touch on your clients!
The biggest single financial hit in postal history occurred when the telephone bills stopped. Used to be a phone bill was required to have XYZ information and sent to a company. Some of those bills went in large boxes, some of them went in many boxes ~ all at First Class postage rates.
Earlier there was a prohibition against having more than one message in a single envelope ~
Most folks probably think ordinary private communications have hurt mail volume. Actually, it's been business communications that've been lost ~ and ever since the telephone was invented, private communications haven't been a major mail component!
The xerox copy increased mail volume for a good long while ~ people who could not earlier afford to make multiple copies suddenly had cheap copies ~ and they sent them. Email has probably subverted some of that, but your meeting notices get lost in the flood of emails for cheap flowers for funerals, and cheap plane tickets to vacation spots on islands you never heard of.