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Comment by bemmu | Hacker News Reader

Yeah it's a strange discount system as it is totally based on the raw count of items, disregarding what they cost to send. As I get closer to that 1000 limit I will definitely get more and more motivated to bridge that final gap by any means.

Now a shipment usually costs me around $3 to mail. At that 1000 threshold the discount will suddenly go from $0 to $300. Sending an empty envelope would cost about $1.

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Why wouldn't you use that opportunity to send coupons/promo materials since it's at basically no cost? Empty envelopes seem like a waste.

Are they the cheapest courier for you? Have you shopped around for other couriers?

so basically when you hit 901 real shipments, it becomes profitable to send 1000 - (number of real shipments) empty envelopes, at a total savings of $3 * (number of real shipments - 900).

(For number of real shipments <= 1000)

It's even less than that. The equation that describes the decision to send envelopes is:

0.9(3n + 1000 - n) < 3n

Which is the same as n > 750.

Shit I just spent an hour researching this !

Something was fishy in your inequation here is my result :

3x > 3x+(1000-x-300)

So this means that at x > 700 it is profitable to send empty enveloppes.

I think your equation is modeling an exact savings of 300 for sending 1000 pieces of mail. The discount is 10% for sending 1000 pieces.

Mine is simply comparing the cost of sending n pieces of mail at $3 each to 90% of the sum of n pieces at $3 each and 1000-n at $1 each.

Yes I assumed a 300 flat rate from the previous comment, but you're right he mentions 10% in his post.

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