(Not complaining—just curious!)
I’m originally from Germany, and over there it’s super common to get flyers from local restaurants, handymen, hairdressers, etc. in your mailbox—usually delivered by individuals or small companies, not the post office. It’s cheap and everywhere.
But here in the US, I’ve never seen that. The only flyers I get are the ones stuffed in with my regular mail, clearly delivered by USPS. No random pizza menus, no local deals dropped off by flyer guys.
In the land of endless advertising, why hasn’t this taken off?
Is it a legal thing? Cultural? Logistics? Genuinely curious!
Comments
In the US, it’s actually illegal for random people to shove stuff into your mailbox. Those are reserved for the US Post Office only. This isn’t enforced super tightly, of course, but it’s something that a commercial operation will usually avoid.
Instead, we sometimes get people who leave flyers on cars in parking lots, or go around a neighborhood putting up posters or door hangers.
I get takeout menus, coupons, ads, and religious stuff on my door or car at least once every couple weeks. It must be a regional thing. Maybe wherever you live isn’t dense enough to be worth the effort.
New places , usually restaurants do it in parking lots or our local pennysaver has local flyers and menus and such .. also a lot of food places staple menus to the bags.. it’s a crime for anyone to solicit in people’s mailboxes
It’s a legal thing.
The mailbox is considered part of the US Postal system. We have a lot of outdoor mail boxes that are accessible to others – so people tampering is unwelcome. If we mostly used mail slots, this might be different.
It’s a federal crime to use mailboxes if you aren’t part of the US Postal System or the resident.
https://about.usps.com/news/state-releases/tx/2010/tx_2010_0909.htm
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1725
Because you’d get shot.
I get the same thing in the US but usually on my car or as a hanger on my door at home. This one dude started a vape delivery service and was leaving ads on my door every day for a week before he got the hint lmao. I didn’t know it was illegal to put it in the mailbox but I guess it is here.
Flyers and business cards are left at the door, not the mailbox. That is exclusively for USPS.
We have this in NYC. People are hired to stick flyers in peoples doors and mailboxes, etc. I’m in a suburban patch of Eastern Queens.
Ive lived all over the tri-state area (NYC), and this is very much a thing. Has been a thing for decades, as long as I can rememer. I’ve got a flyer from a new Chinese place in my drawer right now, came separate from mail
Coupon books, flyers for local real estate agents, restaurant menus, all commonly arrive by non-mailmen flyer/junk mail people
For all these people saying it’s against the law, and the USPS doesn’t allow it, nobody has told the business owners in my area. And apparently it’s never enforced
I do get them shoved into my mailbox sometimes. (Suburbs south of Boston). I had no idea they were illegal. I just get rid of them with the rest of the junk.
Flyers used to get handed out a lot, specially outside of nightclubs. Tradesmen will hand out flyers when canvassing a neighborhood they’re currently working in, and those flyers are usually attached to a rubber-band that gets hung on a doorknob.
But just standing outside of a business and handing them out mainly stopped because, I think, cities started cracking down and fining the business for people just littering the street with said flyers.
You just haven’t been to the right places.
Living in an apartment complex, you get flyers left on your door handle all the time. Some cities, people hand them out. Some places, you come back and there are a few on your car windshield.
I used to get menus in my lobby of my apartment building. I assume they still do, don’t live there anymore. They can’t get in the mailboxes but just leave some in the lobby.
I also, quite many years ago, worked “marketing” for a local live venue and part of my job was to pass out flyers at fairs and parades and litter every windshield on every car in the parking lot at the grocery store. One time, we even took a group to a wealthy neighborhood and went door to door up every street just to leave a flyer on every door. Scummy! It feels scummy. But I suppose they’d still do that if covid didn’t put that place out of business. It’s really not a delight to have to walk around putting flyers around on foot when the postal carrier can take it, they’re going anyway.
Actually IN the mailbox? That is a legal thing. The USPS is the only people allowed to put your stuff in the mailbox. And direct mail advertising can range from $0.20 to $1.40 per piece, it’s pretty darned cheap to get the post office to deliver it for you.
Depending on where you are you can end up with flyers on your door, but america is so suburbanized that it takes tons of time and effort to deliver to a handful of houses. Like in my neighborhood you’d have to walk at least 5 miles to hit 100 houses, between the length of the driveways and distance between houses.
You also can end up with flyers tucked under your windshield wiper in parking lots where huge amounts of people leave their cars for hours at a time, such as malls or movie theaters, but most people hate shit like that so most businesses will tresspass (kick out and legally prohibit from returning under threat of arrest) anyone they find leaving flyers.
Ultimately unless you’re in a dense city it’s just not very common. Partially legal, partially cultural, partially logistical. Heck, most people just instantly throw away junk mail, including flyers delivered by USPS. We are the land of endless advertising but we fucking hate it, which makes advertisers push even harder because almost nobody pays attention to ads, but pushing harder makes even more just give up trying to process advertising and completely ignore it or take active steps to remove it from their presence. It’s a vicious cycle that I’m not really sure how the advertising industry can come back from.
I think it depends on the neighborhood. My neighborhood has sidewalks, big trees, and the houses are not far apart. (1950s inner suburban neighborhood.) It’s easy for someone to park on the street and then walk on the sidewalk and distribute their flyers. I get flyers and business cards on my door every week. When I lived in more rural and suburban neighborhoods I did not.
We have this in Philadelphia. Must be a city thing.
It’s illegal to put anything into any mailbox that is not going through the US mail.
it’s illegal to put any “non-mailed” items in a mail box. USPS has a monopoly.
Local coffee shops (and even Starbucks, at least it used to) would have a community billboard for local events, fundraisers, and so on.
My apartment complex has something similar in the mail room
Also sending your menu via the mail is very cheap.
There used to be but then we all put signs up that said don’t knock on my fucking door and it kinda stopped.