Mailing/Fulfillment - Postal Trends

Amazon's move to start to sending Sunday deliveries through the United States Postal Service (USPS) will generate it some serious revenue. It will also likely improve the agency's employment picture, as the Postal Service had only limited Sunday operations in the past.

Amazon's a leader, and it wouldn't be a surprise if smaller Web-based retailers have little choice but to also team up with the Postal Service to keep up.

Amazon and the Postal Service aren't disclosing the costs or the length of the contract. They also are not disclosing volume projections. Los Angeles and New York City will begin offering

Orders from Amazon.com will soon be arriving on doorsteps not just six days a week, but seven. The online megastore announced a deal on Monday with the The United States Postal Service (USPS). Amazon said the first Sunday deliveries would be made this coming weekend.

USPS spokeswoman Sue Brennan called the expanded delivery a "win/win" for Amazon and added that the postal service is interested in forming similar agreements with other retailers.

The deal comes ahead of the busy holiday shopping season. The USPS annually delivers packages on some Sundays in December.

A whistleblower is claiming that his former employer, Northrop Grumman, defrauded the U.S. Postal Service by providing it false information about the Flats Sequencing System. The ex-employee “alleges that the company violated the False Claims Act in a number of ways with respect to the FSS contract [and] alleges damage to the USPS in an amount of at least approximately $179 million annually,” Northrop Grumman stated in its recent quarterly financial report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The ex-employee also “alleges he or she was improperly discharged in retaliation.” The Washington Post has identified the whistleblower as

No discussion of the Postal Reform Act (PRA) took place at the meeting of the Senate's Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee, complicating Chairman Tom Carper's original mission to pass legislation this year. Carper (D-DE) said the bill would be discussed at the committee's November 20 meeting instead, giving Ranking Member Tom Coburn's (R-OK) absence as part of the reason.

But reasons for the delay run much deeper. The three major stakeholders in U.S. Postal Service policy—Postal Service management, unions, and mailers—remain at odds over details of the proposed Senate legislation.

Postal officials claim that the vast majority of USPS’s revenue losses in recent years were caused by the economic recession of 2007-2009—an “exigent” circumstance that could justify rate increases exceeding the rate of inflation.

But trade associations from several mail-dependent industries contend that the losses came primarily from “electronic diversion and other trends that do not qualify as extraordinary or exceptional circumstances” that would allow the cap on price hikes to be breached. And the associations point to none other than the Postal Service’s own statements to prove their point.

The United States Postal Service (USPS) is on pace to bleed more than $20 billion over 2012 and 2013, and top officials there have urged Democrats and Republicans to come together on a legislative fix.

But in the latest setback for postal reform, Democrats like Sens. Jon Tester (Mont.) and Claire McCaskill (Mo.) say a current Senate bill would do too much to, among other things, slow down delivery standards and eat into USPS’s remaining competitive advantages.

This week, Structural Graphics presents a Web key campaign that it developed for client Liberty Mutual to introduce its services to independent brokers.

This week, Structural Graphics presents a telescoping mailer with Web key that that has three panels, revealing an image transition when the user slides it open.

This week, Structural Graphics presents its latest direct mail piece, which combines interesting typography, eye-catching graphics, and a message that will resonate with higher education marketers.

The United States Postal Service's (USPS) public relations department responded last night to a recent Dead Tree Edition article. We are publishing the response in its entirety, without comment, except to note that article was based on a combination of verifiable facts and readers' opinions.

We also note that many postal employees—supervisors and "suits," as well as worker bees—have complained vociferously about USPS's organizational structure. And that a significant overhaul of that structure would probably face legal hurdles.