When you think about a letter opener, what comes to mind? A knife? A pair of scissors? Your hand? All the above would be correct for many people, but times have changed …. a lot. In the digital age, it is hard to 
believe that many of us are still opening letters the same way our grandparents used to. Modern machines are now available to make letter opening fast and efficient.
The 21st century was supposed to be a paperless age. With the invention of the computer, the Internet and e-mail, paper shouldn’t even exist, right? At least that is the way it was supposed to be. In case you haven’t noticed, you are probably receiving more letters, credit card applications and mail than ever before. Paper usage isn’t decreasing, but rather increasing.
Letter openers are now more automated and require little manual use. They have even put motors on these things. Motorized, electric-powered letter openers will make a short order of any envelope. They are capable of taking a stack of letters and cutting them open, making the contents inside easily accessible.
Just because a letter opener is powered doesn’t mean it has to be huge or exclusive to a mailroom. Martin Yale makes a model called the 1624 that retails for under $25 that fits in the palm of your hand. As soon as the letter opener detects paper, its slitter kicks into action and opens the envelope.
If you are in a mailroom, some letter openers are capable of opening up to 20,000 envelopes per hour. Imagine — how many people you would have to hire to open the same amount of envelopes by hand? Although powerful, these envelope openers do not take up a warehouse of space. Many can easily sit on a desk or counter for convenient use.
If you’re a small to mid-size business, you can probably benefit from an automated electric letter opener. Although you may not need a large mailroom-style letter opener, there are many letter openers that are designed to handle an average volume of mail with room to grow.
Remember the U.S. elections of 2000 and the famous references to hanging chad? The term “chad” was not a made-up fictional term. It is real and has made its way into the letter-opening world. Many letter openers now feature “chadless” operation. This means that when the letter is opened, no waste paper is left behind. A precision blade slices just deep enough into the envelope to open it, leaving the contents unscathed.
Regardless of whether you need a letter opener for home or business use, these amazing devices will save you time and money. Contact Office Zone for more information on letter openers.
This entry was posted on Friday, January 9th, 2009 at 6:18 pm and is filed under Featured Products. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.