The Market

Enormous Market Opportunity

Recent data published by VMR (Verified Market Reports) indicates that mailboxes and related products -- including mailbox posts -- account for over $800 million of sales on an annual basis in the United States and Canada alone.

While The Post-Preserver certainly offers some measure of value to every homeowner whose mailbox stands on a post, the level of value is at least partly a function of how much snowfall a homeowner's property is subjected to. Certainly, Mr. Curley's invention will help mitigate or avoid permanent damage in other scenarios -- e.g. a delivery van accidentally ramming into a mailbox post. 

However, as one can read on municipal websites from across the Northern U.S. and Canada, at least in those regions, the problem of snow pressure snapping mailbox posts is far more common than, say, the relatively rare instances of an Amazon van mowing down mailbox posts in California, Florida or any number of other U.S. states with little to now snowfall. So, at least to some extent, The Post-Preserver is serving a regional market. 

The Pressure of Snow on Mailbox Posts

Even applying a fairly stringent criterion of at least 25 inches of annual snowfall to annual state-by-state data, no less than twenty:-three states make the cut: Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Colorado, Alaska, Michigan, New York, Massachusetts, Wyoming, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Utah, Rhode Island, Connecticut, South Dakota, Montana, North Dakota, Idaho, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Nebraska, Ohio, and West Virginia. Collectively, these states represent almost 100 million U.S. residents, of which close to 70 million are homeowners and it can be estimated that at least 50 million own single-family homes.

Pretty much all of Canada meets the snowfall requirements. So, adjusting that national population of over 40 million for single family home ownership, one can add an additional 20 million from Canada. As such, from the U.S. and Canada alone, there's an enormous market of 70 million homeowners living in regions of relatively heavy snowfall that stand to benefit significantly from an invention that saves them the considerable time and expense of replacing their mailbox posts (and associated support structures, etc.) when snowplows pack too much snow around their posts after a significant snowfall. 

The video below was taken by the inventor. It shows how people in his native New England, after seeing their own or their neighbor's mailbox post get broken by snow pressure, try to protect against the problem in the absence of a real solution. For example, some people utilize a sort of above-ground pot-like structure for their posts so that, if a post gets snapped by snow pressure, that doesn't create damage to difficult-to-repair concrete structures in the ground. Of course, that doesn't protect the post itself but this and other methods do demonstrate how serious and common a problem mailbox post damage by snow pressure really in snow-heavy regions like New England.

So, an enterprising licensee can leverage this invention to gain significant additional market share -- especially in Canada and the many snow-heavy American states.