Address Not Required

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If you’ve ever had a post office box, you’ve probably noticed that those “extra” four digits of a zipcode are the last four digits of your box number. Street addresses have those as well, but there can be many addresses that have the same 9 digit zip code. They are useful for doing things like separating one side of the street versus another and helping the mail carrier put the mail in the order they will deliver it.

A friend of mine suggested that if you have a post office box, you really don’t need to address it – just put the entire zip code on it. To make matters more fun, maybe you just need the barcodes? So, we tried it.

With just the address, the envelope made it. Even better, it was delivered on the same day as a normally addressed envelope mailed at the same time. They even sprayed a set of barcodes on the envelope.

With just the barcode, we were not as lucky. It was returned to the sender. I have seen cases where an envelope that was barcoded by the sender received an additional POSTNET code sprayed on the bottom of the envelope. I’m not certain why that sometimes happens. Perhaps it is just a variation of equipment in the sorting facilities. Nevertheless, you cannot consistently get a mailpiece delivered in this fashion.

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