The term 'bagging off residues' is used by bulk mailers. Can anyone tell me what this means?
Answers:
Interesting question - after some surfing the net I came up with this:
"Sortation Discount (Additional to the Weight discount)
The addresses are sorted into small areas (delivery office areas) and, where there are not enough items in an area, into larger county-type areas. These are called Direct Selections and Residues respectively. You get more discount for Direct Selections as the Royal Mail have less onwards sortation to do. "
As far as I can see from the excerpt (from the reference below) and a couple of other sites I also found, bulk mailers can get discount for partially sorting the mail into size and postcode groups - using the same criteria the royal mail does. These groups have a minimum amount and mail which is too small an amount to make a bag in its own group and also mail which has not got a postcode is called residue. It's all put into a bag together, thus bagging off the residues.