National Postal Forum Highlights Few, but Vital, Options for Smaller Mailers

The second summer seasonal pricing discount has been approved for standard mail projects which accumulative volumes exceed the July-September volumes of last year for larger retail mailers.

“Exigent” Rate Increases Over the Price Cap

For a number of market dominant products the USPS price is well below that offered by competition. The USPS would like regulatory relief to impose a one-time price hike (in excess of the legal inflationary cap) to recover some of this lost opportunity margin value. This is just about the only USPS issue, which the postal unions will endorse to support management. The two most obvious “market dominant products” are periodicals and standard flats like catalogs. Since the postal costs for periodicals typically exceeds the total printing costs for all periodicals whose run length exceeds 15,000, such a move could force additional bankruptcies or shutting down of marginally profitable titles.