May 14th, 2009 — Postal News & Commentary
Update (10/15/2009): We just got word that there will be no postage increase for direct mail in 2010. In the words of the USPS:
“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.
May 6th, 2009 — Postal Tips & Advice
Reminder: The new postage rate increase goes into affect on Monday, May 11th.
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Today’s blog post is going to make you aware of a service the USPS offers just in case you weren’t aware it was an option.
It’s called the ACS Service. Here’s what it does in a nutshell…
You send out a direct mail campaign and some of the mail pieces don’t get delivered because the recipient recently moved. Well, with the ACS Service, the USPS will email you an electronic spreadsheet with the new addresses of these new movers.
For First-Class mail, your mail will get forwarded to the new addresses…for Standard mail, they won’t…but either way, you’ll receive an electronic spreadsheet of new addresses to easily update your database with.
The cost for this service varies. Furthermore, the customer/mailer — not the print/mail vendor — has to set it up. Reason being, ACS is tied to the BRE that gets returned with orders…and this bulk permit is usually in the customer or mailer’s name.
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April 15th, 2009 — Postal Tips & Advice
This post will serve has a follow up to our recent video on how to cut postage costs on catalog type mailers.
We want to expand on a few points so our cost-saving suggestions are complete. Please watch the above video before continuing so our points below make sense.
In the video, we spoke about cost-effective solutions for cutting postage on booklet or catalog type mailers. We mentioned the postage cost savings could be as high as $0.25 per piece. This savings does not include the additional costs to produce the options we’ve noted in the video.
For example, on the slim-jim piece, you will incur the cost of the (2) wafer seals required to mail at letter automation rates which is usually around $10.00/m. Another factor in moving from the full-size mailer to the slim-jim is the decrease in the amount of creative real estate. You will generally need to add 4 to 8 pages to make up for this lost space. Despite these two additional costs, the savings are huge because of how much postage you’re cutting.
The other option we spoke about is printing a full-size mailer but refolding (or soft-folding) the piece to 8.5 x 5.5. There are two additional costs associated with this as well.
First is the cost to refold the piece which generally runs about $500 depending on the equipment of your printer. The second is the cost to apply (2) wafer seals to close the piece and qualify for letter automation rates. As was the case above, even with these two factors considered, the cost savings are huge.
On a side note, the post office is reevaluating the use of the slim-jim format to make it run better on their letter sorting equipment. As it stands right now, many of the slim-jim pieces do not run well on their equipment and, as a result, have to be either hand sorted or run on their flat sorting equipment.
Stay tuned for an update on this ruling.
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