Sticker shock is common these days when mailers are presented with postage estimates for their direct mail campaigns. One printer, however, has come up with a unique answer to the problem and developed a packaging solution that has already saved one client $1.4 million in postage. Tucker Printers, a Consolidated Graphics company, developed the patent-pending CGX Flex Mailer for a promotional products and fulfillment customer that found the price of mailing promotional items at the parcel rate prohibitive. With the CGX Flex Mailer, items such as an MP3 player or a T-shirt can be mailed as an automated flat. In the first few months that the packaging solution has been available, it has helped save  mailers between 49 cents per piece up to $1.27 per piece, according to Craig Reynolds, president at Tucker Printers. One customer sent out 1.5 million pieces of mail and saved $1.4 million in postage, he reports. The CGX Flex Mailer could help the US Postal Service regain some of the sampling business it has lost in recent years because the cost to mail out samples as a parcel has been so high, Reynolds notes. “We can capture some of that back with this mailer,” he states. In addition to samples, the packaging solution could work for promotional mailers as well as direct mailers looking for a dimensional solution. Tucker Printers worked with the US Postal Service for several months to develop the packaging solution. It consists of an outer material that is flexible while retaining enough surface tension to enable it to be classified as an automated machinable flat. Products are affixed to a tray that is inserted inside the envelope and which is available in six sizes. Both the tray and the outer envelope can be printed with six colors.