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Mail a Letter Online

mailaletter.com

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Re: Mail a Letter Online

#71

I'm the founder of http://handwrite.io , which allows you to use your own real handwriting to send out cards in about 30 seconds a card. Our robots use real pen and paper to write in your actual handwriting. For every card, your handwriting is generated from scratch so it's unique every time and not a font like other services. And if you don't like how your writing looks, you can always use one from our selection. We…

I was a customer of one of your competitors (bond.co) who just recently shut down operations, though I'm not sure why.

Would love it if there was an API integration, so that I could automate the delivery of handwritten cards. Do you have anything like in the works?

Re: Mail a Letter Online

#72
post #51

I created http://simplepostal.com a year and a half ago. Just never knew how to get it on top of hacker news :)

You need to get on the HTTPS bandwagon as well https://doesmysiteneedhttps.com/

To be fair their entire app subdomain is under HTTPS just not their marketing site. But agreed on TLS-everything.

Re: Mail a Letter Online

#74
post #58
post #51

I created http://simplepostal.com a year and a half ago. Just never knew how to get it on top of hacker news :)

I don't like how hard it is to find the pricing... which isn't even very explanatory. >All included at one low price - printing, postage and shipping. Only pay for what you send. Higher discounts at higher volume. As low as $1.50 per mail.

TBH - this was a side project that has been running for 2 years. Not something that I have touched in a long time, it gets a steady stream of people using it via organic search.

Re: Mail a Letter Online

#76

I'm the founder of http://handwrite.io , which allows you to use your own real handwriting to send out cards in about 30 seconds a card. Our robots use real pen and paper to write in your actual handwriting. For every card, your handwriting is generated from scratch so it's unique every time and not a font like other services. And if you don't like how your writing looks, you can always use one from our selection. We…

> I'm the founder of http://handwrite.io, which allows you to use your own real handwriting to send out cards in about 30 seconds a card.

I was about to mention that about a year ago I had this as an idea, but not something I was going to execute on - but it seemed like it would be a fun home project to attempt using a cheap plotter.

At the time, I googled to see if anyone had done this, and I had found an old art project that, iirc, used human writers to transcribe the letters, and they processed thousands over the course of a very limited run for the project.

So it seemed like a potential business idea that could have legs.

I hope it works out for you!

Re: Mail a Letter Online

#77
post #23
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://lob.com probably has what you're looking for. I've used their service for awhile and it's amazing.

Yeah I use Lob for a lot of my "write up a letter, print, and mail it with a written record of what I sent and when" correspondence. They make it super easy to send letters about as easily as an e-mail. I am very clearly not the intended customer and appreciate that they're willing to take my business anyway. I also used them for holiday cards two years back, which was * Fantastic -- super straightforward to write up…

Glad you like our service! In the future don't hesitate to reach out to us through support (I work at Lob)!

The scuff marks that you saw in your mail are most likely due to belt rollers in the USPS sorting facilities. We've tried a lot of different combinations of paper, ink and protective coatings to minimize the chance of mail pieces being damaged but we haven't found a combination that 100% removes the chance of damage during the USPS sorting process.

Throughout the mailing lifecycle a piece of mail will go through several sorting facilities. Each facility has similar sorting machines but they might be in different conditions. There's a chance that a certain sorting facility has machines with more worn out rollers that cause higher damage rates than others. This would manifest in mail pieces going to a certain zip code experiencing higher damage rates. For mail that is returned to the sender it has to go through even more sorting facilities (both when being delivered and back) that causes an even higher damage rate.

Here's a video showing you the type of sorting machines each mail piece goes through: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB7QOK1bd3U

Re: Mail a Letter Online

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if it was just the scanned signature, or was it something else about the service you used that made the physical letter look untrustworthy.

Scanned signature for sure. I once had a form rejected by the Australian equivalent of the DMV for it "appearing to have different handwriting in places", and another time a bank rejected a form for the signature being in a different colour ink to the rest of the form.

This is interesting. In the US, my 'signature' is always a picture or a doodle, sometimes I write famous people's names in sloppy cursive. If it was like an important contract or something, I might try a bit harder... but to be honest I don't truly have a 'signature', I can either write my name in my terrible handwriting, or not.

Re: Mail a Letter Online

#79
post #51

I created http://simplepostal.com a year and a half ago. Just never knew how to get it on top of hacker news :)

You need to get on the HTTPS bandwagon as well https://doesmysiteneedhttps.com/

Agreed - this was a side project developed almost 2 years ago. as someone else mentioned - entire app subdomain is under https. Only the marketing page is http.

Re: Mail a Letter Online

#80
post #5

I used a service similar to this in 2011 after I moved back from Australia to UK. Australian banks charge a monthly fee if you don't deposit your salary into the account so after a few months I realized my now-defunct Australian current account was very close to $0 (I had left a few dollars in there when I left). I emailed them and asked them to close the account to which they replied I needed to send a snail-mail le…

German authorities use a phrase like "this letter was written by machine and is valid without signature".
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