Magazine Publishers, Catalogers, Newspapers Are Facing Postal Rate Increase Next Month

Magazine publishers, newspapers, catalogers, and other senders of flat mail are slated to be hit with a backdoor postal rate increase next month.

Implemented without hearings, or regulatory approval, the rate hike will be tiny – a small fraction of 1% for most mailers. But the U.S. Postal Service has given mailers good reason to believe this is just the proverbial nose of the camel in the tent.

Officially, what the USPS posted last week in its Postal Bulletin was not a rate hike but rather a “Labeling List Change” – to have its Flats Sequencing System (FSS) machines process mail for an additional 29 ZIP codes.