Paying bills electronically is becoming commonplace. But a significant number of households still use the mail to pay their bills, according to the Postal Service’s Household Diary Study.

Bill payment or transaction mail accounted for 26 percent of all household mail volume in 2012 — and 62 percent of all First-Class Mail (USPS is currently compiling and analyzing data for the 2013 study).

The 2012 study examined six methods for paying bills and found 79 percent of households paid at least one bill by mail (down from 94 percent in 2000). However, the share of households making at least one payment online has rapidly grown, increasing from 4 percent in 2000 to 65 percent in 2012.

“While the majority of households still paid at least one bill by mail, the share of bills remitted that way decreased to only about one-third as households increasingly paid bills in other ways,” said USPS Financial Economist John Mazzone.

The shares of households using other, less popular bill payment methods (at least once) were: 57 percent for automatic deductions from bank accounts, 22 percent by credit card and 15 percent by telephone. Interestingly, the study also found that 26 percent of households still made at least on payment in person.

According to the study, the share of bills paid per month by mail in 2012 was 40 percent compared to 35 percent paid over the Internet. By comparison, in 2000 those shares were 81 percent and 2 percent, respectively

Total transaction mail volume fell 8.8 percent between 2010 and 2012, reflecting a 16.2 percent decline in bills paid by mail.

via USPS News Link Story – Checks in the mail.