Mailing/Fulfillment - Postal Trends

It’s looking increasingly unlikely that the House and Senate will agree on a plan to save the Postal Service by May 15, when a moratorium on closing postal processing plants expires. Rep. Darrell Issa of California, who has authored a House plan to save the Postal Service, called the Senate bill “wholly unacceptable.”

Aides say Republican leaders don’t feel pressured to take up the House bill right away, because they’re not worried about postal closures. In fact, the House legislation paves the way for more closures, as well as the end of Saturday service.

The House bill also breaks union contracts,

The Nielsen study revealed that direct mail pieces in real envelopes (printed envelopes as well as standard envelopes) still generate the highest open and read rates when compared to self-mailers, wrappers and emails as the diagram demonstrates.

The Senate is set to resume consideration Wednesday of a bill overhauling the U.S. Postal Service after agreeing to change the bill to set limits on when and how the agency could close small rural post offices. Senators are considering 39 amendments to the massive bipartisan bill.

Among the changes approved Tuesday, senators agreed to strengthen the appeals process for customers opposed to closing a post office; to force USPS to wait until after Election Day to close postal facilities in states that permit voting by mail; and to permit the Postal Service to co-locate post offices in government-owned buildings to

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) on Monday said he is putting forward an amendment to a postal reform bill that would end what he calls the “corporate welfare” associated with current law that requires the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to provide some services to companies at a loss.

“Current law...actually mandates that the PO provide some services at a loss,” Corker said on the floor.

...his amendment to the 21st Century Postal Service act, S. 1789, would eliminate current law that limits the ability of the USPS to raise the price of some services.

Senators spent most of the week debating a measure to overhaul the Postal Service by giving it $11 billion to offer buyouts to hundreds of thousands of employees, to eventually end six-day mail delivery—if it is is deemed financially necessary—and to possibly end delivery of mail to door-side mailboxes in favor of more centralized locations.

Late Thursday, Senate leaders agreed to a list of at least 38 amendments—but aides said the list likely will be shortened to fewer than 20 in time for votes on the amendments and final passage of the bill next Tuesday.

The Nielson study found that the printed envelopes were opened and their contents read by 84.5 percent of recipients, which made them the most opened advertising option (vs. standard envelopes—75.6 percent, self-mailer—71.4 percent and wrapper—71.2 percent).

Winkler+Dünnebier GmbH and Kern AG have agreed to expand their long-standing relationship, which has until now been limited to the sale of specific products, into a global market and technology alliance. Both companies will now be able to offer interesting possibilities for a forward and backward integration along the mail value chain.

Unions and some lawmakers say the U.S. Postal Service's plans to close plants and post offices would turn customers away and hasten the service's downward spiral. Now their campaign has been buoyed by revelations of a survey that the Postal Service commissioned —and then dismissed and pushed to make secret.

The survey, budgeted to cost up to $435,000, shows closures and cutbacks would cost $5.2 billion in lost business and result in a 7.7% drop in mail volume.

The Postal Service says the survey—conducted last summer—was “seriously flawed”…a new survey showed the Postal Service losing $1.3 billion in revenue.

Flats Sequencing System machines continue to run much slower than their target speeds and aren't getting any faster. But they also aren't breaking down as often as they were last year, according to a presentation Megan J. Brennan, USPS's Chief Operation Officer, made at a recent Mailers Technical Advisory Committee (MTAC) meeting.

From October through mid-February, the average number of pieces sequenced hourly ranged from 7,000 to 10,000 per week, well below the target of nearly 12,000. Throughputs so far this year have stabilized in the range of 8,000 to 9,000 per hour with a slightly downward trend.

A recent edition of The Week came with a letter from the editor concerning mail delivery. A lot of readers value their traditions and were upset that they’d no longer be able to count on receiving their copies by Friday.