“The USPS states: Today, we mailed 3,000 letters to eligible customers announcing our plans for a Standard Mail Summer Sale. To be eligible to participate, a company must have mailed a minimum of 350,000 pieces of Standard Mail letter or flat volume between July 1 and Sept. 30, 2009. We have established thresholds by taking a company’s Standard Mail volume mailed during this period in 2009 and adding 5%.

A qualifying company exceeding their threshold volume between July 1 through Sept. 30, 2010, will be eligible for a 30% rebate on postage spent on Standard Mail volume that exceeds the agreed upon threshold.

To receive the full benefit of the program, volumes mailed cannot be shifted from June 2010 or October 2010 into the sale period. The letters we mailed have additional instructions on how to apply. We expect the Postal Regulatory Commission’s (PRC) review to be finished by mid-April. Applications must be completed by May 28, 2010.”

To view the Standard Mail Summer Sale Fact Sheet, CLICK HERE.

Click here to read the article in PDF format.

I want to start out by saying I’m not positive the above website is 100% accurate. But it looks like the information is well-researched and documented and, as a result, I feel comfortable posting it on our blog.

Postage Fun Facts:

• In 1885, postage was 2 cents.
• In 1898, postcard postage was 1 cent.
• Postage remained 2 cents for 47 years.
• The year Ballantine was founded, 1966, postage was 5 cents.

I actually think 2 cents for postage in 1885 sounds like a lot. I don’t know why exactly, but that was just my first impression. But 3 cent postage in 1932 — what a deal!

What do YOU think?

Effective on July 1st, 2009, the USPS is implementing their new incentive program (also called Summer Sale) for high-volume bulk mail senders. It’s more like a rebate because you get 30% back on the postage costs of a portion of future mailings within a certain time period.

How do you qualify for the incentive program?

1. You must be the mail owner of a permit imprint advance deposit account, or the owner of a deposit account that is used through a mail service provider.

2. You must have mailed at least one million pieces of direct mail between October 1st, 2007 and March 31st, 2008.

If you qualify, you should have received a letter from the USPS. If you qualify and you didn’t receive a letter, send an email to summersale (at) usps.gov. And here’s a link to the USPS website for more info on this Summer Sale.

Lastly, if there’s anything we can do to help, or if you have questions, please send an email to matt (at) ballantine.com or contact us here.

“Simply stated, there will not be a price increase for market dominant products including First-Class Mail, Standard Mail, periodicals, single-piece Parcel Post. There will be no exigent price increase for these products.

This is the right decision at the right time for the right reason. Promoting the value of mail and encouraging its continued use is essential for jobs, the economy, and the future of both the Postal Service and the mailing industry.”

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Since the wounds are still fresh from the May 11th 2009 postage rate increase, we wanted to sprinkle some potentially good news on the situation.

Dan Blair, chair of the Postal Regulatory Commission, recently stated that based on the current trend of inflation, the postage rate increase for 2010 would likely be less than 1%.

That being said, the USPS is allowed to file for an exception based on revenue shortfalls, but Mr. Blair said this is unlikely because they’re afraid it would drive more mailers from the system.

To make things simple, we’re going to recap the new requirements and then point you to a couple of PDFs that contain additional information. This recap comes straight from the PDFs linked to below.

3 New Requirements for Standard & First-Class Mail:

1./ Mailers must address each piece using a minimum of 8-point type. Each character must be at least 0.080 inch high.

2./ If the mailpiece bears a POSTNET or Intelligent Mail barcode with a delivery point routing code, mailers may use 6-point type in all capital letters. Each character must be at least 0.065 inch high.

3./ On all automation pieces, the characters in the address must not overlap, the address lines must not touch or overlap, and each address element may be separated by no more than five blank character spaces. (A blank character space can equal the width of the widest letter used in the type.)

1 Additional Requirement For Standard Mail Only:

1./ Mailers must place the delivery address in the “top half” of the mailpiece (at the time of this writing, every piece of USPS literature we have says this is NOT a requirement for First-Class flat mail).

For more detailed addressing information, click below on the class of flat direct mail you send out.

First-Class | Standard

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There will be a postage rate increase on all classes of mail effective May 11th, 2009.

The increase is actually at or under the rate of inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index.

Here’s a quick recap of the new rates:

Local Entry – 5 digit automated letter: $0.233
Local Entry – Non-profit 5 digit auto letter: $0.132

Local Entry – 5 digit automated flat: $0.346
Local Entry – 5 digit Non-profit auto flat: $0.212

You can also download the 41-page USPS price list here:

http://www.ballantine.com/2009-postage.pdf

If you have ANY postal questions, please contact Matt:
matt (at) ballantine.com

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The past 4 weeks, our previous Move Update post has been the second most visited page on Ballantine.com, second to only our homepage. So obviously this is an important topic right now.

The link above will give you the information you need.

They are changing the time period by which a ‘Move Update’ needs to occur — it will now be within 95 days of the mail date. Previously, it was 185 days.

All mailers will need to fill out a 6014 form at the time of processing to show your mail house. You should also supply proof that a ‘Move Update’ did occur.

A ‘Move Update’ is usually done via what’s called NCOAlink during which the mail file is updated with any changes of address that have been filed with the post office.

This is an attempt by the USPS to decrease the amount of “Undeliverable As Addressed” mail they handle each year. In 2004, UAA amounted to 9.7 billion pieces of mail, which resulted in $2 billion dollars of extra costs for them.

If this regulation is not complied with, there will be a penalty imposed by the post office. This is what our USPS rep told us:

“For First Class, the mailing will be charged at the single piece rate.  For Standard, it has not been decided yet.  A seven cent penalty has been discussed but is not written in stone.”

If you have any questions about the new ‘Move Update’ regulations, please contact Matt Cote: matt (at) ballantine.com

Today’s post is a quick blurb about the new USPS flat standards that are going into effect on March 29th, 2009.

The information was featured in DM News so I’m just going to include what they wrote:

“The US Postal Service has released new address standards for flat-sized mail, set to go into effect on March 29, 2009.

The standards will assist the USPS’ implementation of its Flats Sequencing System (FSS), which will sort flat-sized mail into delivery sequence, reducing carriers’ time spent manually sorting mail.

Mailers will be required to adopt new address placement and formatting requirements for periodicals, Standard Mail, bound printed matter, Media Mail and library mail flat-sized pieces set at automation, presorted or carrier route prices, the USPS aid. The standards also include revisions for automation and presorted First-Class Mail flats.”

We’ll post any updates to these new flat standards as they occur.