Eventually, all will go paperless. Until then, companies such as Zumbox, a provider of digital postal mail services, is providing a reasonable facsimile to get people used to the idea.
Zumbox, based in Westlake Village, Calif., announced the availability this week of a second-generation paperless postal system and a key partnership with output solutions provider DST Output.
Digital postal mail is an exact facsimile of paper mail that is presented and archived digitally for consumers in a secure online environment instead of on paper. It is created from a diversion of the print stream before it reaches a large mailing system.
Digital postal mail could provide an environmentally efficient cost savings for mailers while giving consumers a simple, time-saving and green place to receive, interact with and archive their household postal mail forever, for free.
Zumbox digital postal mail is stored permanently online for consumer households. It replaces the need for mailboxes and file drawers with a central, secure digital repository for mail and documents. It enables automatic, long-term archiving.
Households in the U.S. operate under the perception that they need to keep paper records long-term. They don’t, but as a result, only five to 15 percent stop receiving paper mail by choice.
Those people with Zumbox accounts – one has been created for every street address in the United States – use a verification code to get full access to all mail sent to their Zumbox.
Digital postal mail delivered by large mailers such as DST Output appears in confidential, sealed digital envelopes in Zumbox until the user verifies his or her account and retrieves it. They must opt out of paper delivery.
Zumbox has interactive features such as reminders, notifications of due dates and events, rich media to enhance customer communication, and powerful tagging and metadata to enhance the filing, search and long term storage of household mail and documents.
