Mailing/Fulfillment - Postal Trends

THE GREATEST opportunity to increase your print revenues is right here, right now! And the opportunity is sitting smack in the middle of the U.S. Postal Service’s postage rate increase of May 2007. The USPS is proposing that we change the way we calculate the postage on First Class mail. Currently, postage rates are based on the weight of the piece: one ounce, two ounces, etc. But in May the First Class rates are proposed to be calculated using a combination of weight and shape. This is not a new concept coming from the USPS. In fact, weight/shape-based rate calculations have been in place

FOR THOSE of us who work in the postal world every day, a rate case is an interesting but not overwhelming event. Most of us generally understand where it comes from, how it’s litigated and what it all means in the end. But for many professionals—such as printers—who may be less directly involved in the production of mail, the arcana of postal matters gets even murkier when there’s a rate case. So, as the current case is drawing to a close, it might be useful to step back, consider what it’s all about and draw some general conclusions. First, don’t get confused by the

ARE PRINTERS ‘getting it’? What does that mean? Does it mean that they are not diversifying by utilizing fulfillment? The answer is an emphatic no. In fact, more and more printing companies are entering the fulfillment business sector to make their companies more viable in the future. The promised reward for printers diversifying into fulfillment is that it takes them out of the commodity-driven print marketplace. That selling these solutions will take the focus off of print pricing, and that both print volumes and profit margins will increase with print/fulfillment clients. I can report this, in fact, to be a true statement. Fulfillment

WASHINGTON, DC—December 20, 2006—Congress passed H.R. 6407, the “Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act,” on December 9, 2006. The legislation, which provides a 10 year postal rate cap mechanism and creates new management efficiencies at the United States Postal Service (USPS), was signed by President Bush today. H.R. 6407 marks the first major legislative overhaul of the USPS in three decades. PIA co-founded the Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service, a diverse group of industries and labor that led the charge for passage of postal reform legislation. The following statement is from Michael Makin, President & CEO of Printing Industries of America/Graphic Arts Technical Foundation

WASHINGTON, DC—December 11, 2006—The Printing Industries of America (PIA) today hailed this weekend’s passage of H.R. 6407, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, approved by both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate in the final hours before both chambers adjourned the 109th Congress sine die on December 9, 2006. Passage of comprehensive postal reform legislation was PIA’s number one legislative goal this Congress. PIA is a co-founder of the Coalition for a Twenty-First Century Postal Service, a bipartisan coalition of business, industry, and labor groups that led the fight for updating the nation’s postal laws. “PIA commends lawmakers for finishing the

WASHINGTON, DC—October 3, 2006—The Printing Industries of America (PIA) today reacted to the valiant, yet ultimately unsuccessful, effort of the Senate and House champions of comprehensive postal reform to pass legislation in the waning hours before Congressional adjournment on Saturday. The Coalition for a Twenty-First Century Postal Service, co-founded by PIA, worked into the final hours of the Congressional session to iron out differences between Senate and House bills (S. 1955; H.R. 22) of legislation that would provide the first major overhaul of the United States Postal Service in thirty years. Key provisions in the Senate- and House-passed postal bills address problems in payments for

SUSSEX, WI—10/2/2006—QuadData Solutions, a division of Quad/Graphics, the world’s largest privately held printer of magazines, catalogs, direct mail and other commercial products, has expanded its data-driven marketing services and is offering them to any business that uses data to build relationships and revenues, including multi-channel marketers and retailers as well as marketers in the automotive, financial services, consumer packaged goods, and travel and leisure industries. In addition, the data solutions group, formerly known as Quad/Data Services, has enhanced its list rental capabilities through relationships with a number of well-known, well-respected data providers like InfoUSA/Donnelley Marketing and Advo, Inc. “For the past 18 years we have

IN A time when cost savings and technological improvements have been encouraging publishers of printed products to turn their focus toward the Web, add one more reason to the mix: postal hikes. With one hike earlier this year and the latest proposed hike of 11.4 percent for periodicals and 8.5 percent for standard mail, circulation directors are rethinking their strategies and bracing for financial decisions that could be made by higher-ups. Evelyn Adenau, circulation director for 115,000-circulation San Francisco, already budgeted for the first raise in U.S. Postal Service (USPS) rates, but admits that she, along with many others, did not see this second

STAMFORD, CT—September 27, 200—As consumers move their media choices to highly customized, one-to-one vehicles such as iPods, satellite radio and TiVO, marketers are challenged in managing multi-channel messaging opportunities. As spam is auto-dumped from personal computers, traditional mail has emerged as the most effective “first touch” in Customer Communications Management (CCM). According to the Cable & Telecommunications Association, 70 percent of consumers today prefer to receive advertisements and promotions via the U.S. Mail. Letters including transactional mail constitute a $36 billion dollar industry in the U.S alone, and the entire global mailing industry—including shipping packages—tops off at $900 billion. “Mailstream marketing is the

The discussion of the increased use of direct mail has been common in recent years, especially as a source of growth for print service providers. This week, we focus on the present state of direct mail cards as tracked by the US Postal Service. The chart (click thumbnail below) shows the change in the weight of items mailed in the US Postal Service through this past March. The line with the upward trend is direct mail presorted post cards; the bottom line is periodicals. This direct mail trend line started to move strongly upward when the economy began its expansion in mid-2003. Periodicals have