I am starting an LLC in January 2012, and I'm evaluating various ways of obtaining a postal mailing address that is not my home address. I have to take into consideration the cost of such a service, the distance from my home, and the hours during which I can go to retrieve accumulated mail. Could others give me an idea of how much legitimate postal mail I'll likely have to deal with, over the course of a year?
My company is going to develop software; I'm hoping to hire others (probably temporary help/contractors/vendors at first); I'll have various online hosted services; and I'll have a business banking account. I don't know where I'll work. I'll likely work at home somewhat, but I'm also considering co-working locations and hacker spaces (some of which offer mail service for paying members). Assume that customers will not be provided with a postal mail address for the company. So the mailing address will essentially be strictly for company operations paperwork.
I see some similarity in what I'm asking and this previous question titled "LLC and address" ; I have chosen to focus my question on mail volume.
It is an interesting question but I think it would be a difficult one to answer precisely.
Let's see some macro statistics I found for the EU market to get some average numbers:
Postal service statistics - universal service providers
The analysis of postal traffic in relation to the population dataMy personal interpretation would be that the amount of postal mail per year decreases and it depends on the maturity and intensity of the economy.
shows that the highest number of letter-post items sent per capita in
2009 was recorded in Finland (375) and Luxembourg (373), followed by
the Netherlands and Sweden, each with more than 200 items distributed
per capita. In contrast, eleven EU Member States distributed less than
100 letter-post items per capita, with five of them – Bulgaria,
Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania - sending below 50.
I would expect no more then 200-375 letter-post items delivered per person hired in a company per year.
I would be glad to see some other comments and answers too.
Good idea. I have an LLC that does software, and I get a few mailings per year from government (for state filings, including tax filings) and you'll get a few from the bank.
I believe I have resolved this. A friend has a business with extra office space, and I'll likely be using his location for postal mail and quite possibly co-located workspace.