So we recently made the decision to invest £60,000 and fit 200 photovoltaic (solar) panels to the roof of our large 12,500 square foot warehouse in Aldershot.

Built to operate effectively for 25 years, the installation has been designed to significantly reduce our total CO2 consumption by over 50 tonnes during this time period. 

The large array of solar panels are now fully operational and are capable of generating maximum power level of up to 50 kilo watts of energy on a sunny day! 

Recycling and sustainability are important issues facing all businesses, especially in the print and mailing business. Since founding the company in 2006, we have been committed to the best environmental practices throughout our operations.

We already recycle all paper, cardboard and electrical equipment so our next objective was to find a way of reducing the environmental impact of our in-house mail production equipment.

The solar power system we have installed is capable of producing 43,000 kw hours per annum which will reduce our annual energy consumption by a staggering 30% 

Not only can we reduce our carbon footprint, but we can also send out a powerful message to our customers, by promoting renewable energy generation as well as other important energy efficiency measures. 

As a responsible mailing house, our investment in renewable energy plays a key part in our overall environmental policy as well as significantly reducing the cost of our annual electricity bill.  So it was really a no brainer!

We already comply with the standards for sustainable mail by adopting the very best data techniques to avoid waste from poorly targeted mail and we use sustainable materials, processes and suppliers to improve the overall environmental performance of our mailings.

Our new solar power system supported by these other important initiatives help strengthen our long-term commitment to green credentials and ensure that our mailings are produced in a responsible manner – and hopefully make our competitors green with envy!

The new custom electronic interface allows the printer to recognise the feeder and activate it automatically on initiation of a print job and close it off on completion or on print error thus automatically avoiding jams.  

This set-up provides air separation and vacuum drum induction of paper sheets at up to 15,000 A3 sheets per hour or 24,000 A4 sheets per hour and a lot more on smaller sizes.

Registration is improved by the introduction of a ‘squaring edge’ where all sheets are pushed to a single edge prior to entering the printing conveyor.  The vacuum conveyor on the printing system is second to none and holds the sheet perfectly through the printing process allowing much greater speed of throughput without worry of skewing.

This innovative thinking will allow us to offer a highly competitive coding service to those that need sequential numbering, activation codes, URNs and even barcodes.

A big well done to the IT team for their innovation and dedication for improvement.

See the set-up running A3 sheets at 15,000 per hour:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8eUE_qUxEs

Well done to the IT team!

Surely a headache in the making for all of us involved in preparing and sorting your mail in order to achieve the very best discounts and service levels.

Firstly, they’ve renamed all of their unsorted and sorted bulk mail services into just five products:

Business Mail
Business Mail 1^st Class
Publishing Mail
Advertising Mail
Sustainable Advertising Mail 

Secondly, within these five new products, they’ve changed all the options and specifications available to you. 

Here are just a few of the key changes at a glance: 

Faster options with bulk mail
More large letter options
New packet format for Advertising Mail
New unsorted options for Advertising Mail
Lower entry levels on all sorted products
Reduced sortation levels

If that’s not enough, they have also increased their prices and are going to start charging VAT on UK bulk mail services – all at the same time!

No need to worry though, as the team here at VDP Direct have already had detailed discussions with our Royal Mail contacts to get the insider information on how the new services will work. 

As all of our routing and postage optimisation software is built and controlled in-house we are well equipped to deal with this vast change and from April it will be business as usual for all customers of VDP Direct!

But Royal Mail has laid down strict addressing specifications & mail sortation criteria to qualify for this new service.  

However, you’ll be pleased to know that VDP Direct are fully qualified and equipped to help you get the maximum possible savings by using Advertising Mail.  

Overview

Five delivery speeds to choose from
Multi-stage mailings to include teasers/reminders
Five different types of mail formats up to 3000gms in weight
Minimum volumes apply to each mail format  

To qualify for the Advertising Mail discounts, it’s vital that you mailings are correctly prepared. 

Your mail must be sorted into specific postcode areas with correct addresses using the Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File (PAF) and your customer data must be suppressed against the Mail Preference Service (MPS) including MPS deceased.  

Advertising Mail offers a wide & flexible range of options to choose from, from large scale campaigns to smaller more targeted mailings, whatever you need, we’ll make sure you get the best advice, the right service at the lowest price! 

Slightly confused by all these options? Then call us for some clear advice in straightforward English!

This year however Royal Mail have chosen to re-categorise nearly all of their available services and are doing away with all of the old product names and starting from scratch! Surely a headache in the making for all of us involved in making sure we find the most economical routes to getting your mail onto doorsteps!

Don’t fear however as the team at VDP are already quizzing, poking and prodding our Royal Mail contacts to get the insider information on how the new services will work. 

As all of our postage optimisation software is built and controlled in-house we are well equipped to deal with this vast change and come April it will be business as usual for all customers of VDP Direct.

Watch this space for more updates…