FSS Postage Pricing Will Affect Magazines, Catalogs and Printers

U.S. Postal officials have said recently that they plan to implement new postage rates for the Standard and Periodicals classes early next year that include “an FSS pricing structure.”

Details have not been released, but discussions indicate the plan will include significant incentives for mailers to create FSS-optimized bundles for ZIP codes served by the giant machines while continuing to make traditional carrier-route and 5-digit bundles for non-FSS areas.

The move would take aim at a major reason the $1 billion-plus FSS investment so far has increased USPS’s mail-handling costs more than it has reduced delivery expenses.