Over the last month, a small group called EasyPost.ca has been quietly building a simple and efficient platform for sending letter mail in Canada-- along with a grass-roots following. EasyPost.ca is a small company from Toronto, Canada with a concept not new to the world. Turning 1's and 0's into printed letters has been around for a few years, and some companies are quite successful in Australia and India with the model. The Beta launch of the website however allows users to send their letter to grandma or aunt Mary --free of Charge. It's this fact that's generating all the buzz.
Unknown to the public, based on their FAQ, is how EasyPost.ca can do it so efficiently, provide such great service, and continue to grow. The process flow is fairly simple- A user visits www.Easypost.ca and is presented with two boxes to fill in. The first- the destination address (with no form fields, drop downs or other time consuming attributes) is simply a box where you type the address. Users are cautioned that they must type the address correctly, as this is what gets printed and used by Canada Post to deliver the letter. The second box is larger and, of course, where the user types his or her letter. There are no fancy WYSIWYG additions, or spell checking, or pictures, (yet!)-- just a plain text, fixed-width font like the good old days.
After typing a letter, the users can preview it to check the address one more time, and read over for spelling and grammar. Users are cautioned again that what they see is what will be printed. They then confirm the letter, enter their email address for a copy/confirmation and get a nice thank you from the EasyPost.ca team. As far as 'user experience', the creators took a page from Google and went with simple and easy. Everything takes the fewest possible steps (yet still ensures quality) and the site has a nice friendly feel. No demands for required fields-- it just won't work without them.
I recommend to anyone with a friend, family member or colleague out of touch due to lack of email or even internet access period, --try the service. It's free as of this writing, for letters originating anywhere in the world with a destination in Canada. www.EasyPost.ca It looks like you won't see an ad in the NYTimes or Globe and Mail any time soon: EasyPost.ca is at the other end of the marketing spectrum, choosing to use grass-roots, Word of Mouth, viral, mostly web-based tactics to promote the website and the service. Click HERE to try out EasyPost.ca