Chanhassen, MN (October 13, 2003) - The Instant Web Companies (IWCO), an integrated direct mail services company, announces the expansion of its commingling capacity with the installation of its fourth Delivery-point Bar Code Sorting machine (DBCS). IWCO pioneered single-pass commingling in 1995 and continues to lead the industry in commingling capacity and technology. The program was developed to respond to a marketplace need as targeted mailings increased response rates, but reduced the percentage of mail qualifying for 5-digit discounts. IWCO's Automated Sorting Center now operates four full units of DBCS equipment, the same equipment used by the USPS to sort mail. "Installation of our fourth DBCS machine increases our commingling capacity by 33% and improves inserting efficiencies more than 10%," said Jim Leone, vice president-operations. "This expanded capacity and improved efficiency also gives us more flexibility to meet the needs of the increasing number of clients who are including commingling in their postal strategy." Commingling is the automated sorting of multiple mailstreams into a common mail tray to drive the highest level of postage discounts. IWCO is one of only a handful of mailers who provide true commingling services in the marketplace. Many mailers manually combine mail trays onto single destination postal skids and refer to that process as commingling; however, the combining process impacts only destination entry discounts. True commingling impacts both postage and destination entry discounts for direct marketers. "IWCO's vertical solution continues to be proven in the marketplace to drive substantial cost savings and cycle time reduction opportunities for direct marketers," said Tom Wicka, executive vice president- marketing and sales. "Commingling is an important component of our vertical solution and helps deliver both cost and cycle-time advantages. In addition, the expansion of our commingling capacity, combined with our increased personalization capacity, allows us to easily accommodate complex mailing programs with multiple test panels. Commingling ensures that test panels are delivered at the same time as controls, enabling direct marketers to get a true read on the effectiveness of their test messages, images, and formats." The Instant Web Companies, headquartered in Chanhassen, MN, has served the needs of North American direct marketers for more than 34 years. IWCO provides direct mail like no one else by seamlessly integrating direct mail services from a primary campus resulting in streamlined production for all components - printing, plastics, envelope conversion and mailing. IWCO's industry experience and technology along with proprietary IWCO P.O.S.T. (Postal Optimization Strategy and Technologies) and RideShare(tm) commingling and logistics management programs deliver dramatic postage savings and faster time to market.