Mailing/Fulfillment - Postal Trends

On a recent Saturday morning, 500 protesters poured out of a parade of school buses, signs and megaphones in hand, and tried their best to shame a single Staples store just outside Chicago. Among them was Mike Suchomel, a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Postal Service, who traveled all the way from New Jersey for a nearby labor conference.

What has infuriated Suchomel and many of his fellow postal union members is a new arrangement struck between USPS and the office supply retailer. Under the premise of a pilot program, a limited number of Staples locations are now offering most

Partly because of a shift to lower-paid employees, the U.S. Postal Service experienced a rare improvement in its business last year, according to a Postal Regulatory Commission analysis. But the PRC warned that USPS is still on shaky ground—losing money for the seventh year in a row, short on cash, and unable to borrow money or invest in new equipment.

“The Postal Service reduced expenses in FY 2013” despite a minuscule decline in mail volume, says the PRC’s analysis of the Postal Service’s annual 10K financial report, released a few days ago. “Workhours and the average hourly compensation and benefits rate

This week, Structural Graphics presents a new design that allows the reader to tell three different messages in one, build upon a message or illustrate steps to a process.

This week, Structural Graphics features a dimensional mailer with a QR code it created for client Ford Canada. Structural Graphics teamed up with its partner Information Packaging, to create a custom stage pop folder.

Postal officials, who frequently complain about losing money on Periodicals mail, bear much of the blame for that loss, according to the Postal Regulatory Commission.

“The Commission is increasingly concerned that the Postal Service’s Periodicals pricing strategy is leading to inefficient mailer preparation,” the commission wrote recently in its review of 2013 postal rates, echoing a complaint that magazines have been making for the past decade.

The Postal Service’s flawed accounting shows that it receives only 76 cents in Periodicals-class revenue for every dollar it spends delivering magazines and newspapers. That was an improvement of 4 cents over the previous year

What carriers learn about problem addresses is supposed to be captured in the Postal Service's address-management database, but it's an imperfect process. Because of greater use of “transitional” employees instead of career carriers to deliver the mail, it’s becoming increasingly likely that a poorly addressed letter will end up in the hands of a carrier who doesn’t know how to deliver it, a postal official acknowledged.

Such recent hires are paid less than career carriers, and their hours can be adjusted more to match the peaks and valleys of mail volume.

The Postal Regulatory Commission's advisory opinion on the Postal Service's load-leveling plan is to take a step back and do a more thorough job of assessing the implications for mailers before putting it into play. USPS had hoped to enforce the plan beginning today. It can still choose to do so, or wait and take the PRC's opinion under advisement.

Under the new load-leveling plan, Standard Mail accepted on Friday will not be delivered until Tuesday, and mail accepted on Saturday will have a promised delivery day of Wednesday.

This week, Structural Graphics features a new a Gladiator Magic X-Ray Viewer that was mailed to TED Conference attendees and carried a VIP membership access code for recipients to receive special pricing on Gladiator, KitchenAid, Whirlpool, Maytag, and Amana products.

If you believe Democratic politicians and their allies in the labor movement, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe has a barely concealed agenda to privatize the U.S. Postal Service. Donahoe “can say whatever he wants,” Montana Senator Jon Tester told The Washington Post, “but I think he wants to privatize.”

Why else would Donahoe be so eager to cut costs at the USPS? He’s trying to push the post office to the brink of collapse so there will be no choice but to sell the 238-year-old government mail service. Or so goes the theory.

But this line of thinking doesn’t make sense.

If the U.S. Postal Service were truly a free-market player in American business, it would most likely be in bankruptcy court about now, according to a detailed analysis of the Post Office's 2013 financial results released today by the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC).

"In response to the many concerns and questions regarding the financial position of the United States Postal Service, my colleagues and I have determined that our analysis...should be published separately to provide greater clarity, transparency, and accountability," wrote PRC Chairman Ruth Goldway in an introductory letter to the report.