Mailing/Fulfillment - Postal Trends

The (Postal Regulatory) Commission said in a decision issued yesterday that its current schedule was “slightly more than one month longer” than a schedule that had been suggested by USPS, and that no new information had been provided by USPS to persuade Commissioners that the change in schedule was warranted.

It concluded: “The significant reduction in schedule duration, as proposed by the Postal Service, would deny participants adequate opportunity to understand the Postal Service’s proposals, and deny the Postal Service an adequate opportunity to understand participants’ evidence and prepare rebuttal.”

The delay...makes the Postal Service more reliant on Congressional action

The U.S. Postal Service is, for the second year, planning a summertime promotion for direct mailers that use two-dimensional barcodes, USPS VP of domestic products Gary Reblin told Direct Marketing News on Jan. 31. The details of this year’s promotion will be put before the USPS’s board of governors on Feb. 8 for its approval, Reblin said.

He declined to discuss specifics...he did say this year’s mobile barcode discount promotion will have some different features from last year’s. Reblin said the overarching goal is to “create long-term success for the mail” by getting people more engaged with their mail.

Congressman Brian Higgins recently held a press conference at Zenger Group, a printing and direct mail service provider, to oppose the scheduled closure of the Postal Service William Street facility in Buffalo, NY. That facility is the postal distribution gateway between the United States and Toronto/southern Ontario.

Effective this week, businesses mailing First-Class Mail automation, presort letters using “2nd Ounce Free” pricing can mail letters weighing up to two ounces at the one-ounce postage rate. It is not a limited time promotion, but a new price for First-Class Mail presort, automation letters.

A right-wing think tank in the United States has issued a white paper criticizing the “disturbing” lack of speed at the US Postal Service in responding to declining mail volumes. It said “most” foreign postal services had managed to restore profitability and remain financially viable despite electronic diversion of mail and the impact of the global downturn.

The Congressional advisory note from the Washington DC-based Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation assessed the USPS in comparison to nearly 60 of the world’s major postal services during the recession and its aftermath.

Regulators approved changes on Wednesday, which would mean that companies that have a negotiated service agreement with USPS would no longer have to pay up front before they can mail their advertising materials. These payment terms could still include prepayment, USPS noted, but could also specify other payment methods such as direct electronic bank transfers.

“The (Postal Regulatory) Commission is unaware of any prohibition which would bar its use by the Postal Service,” the regulators concluded, adding that future negotiated services agreements would have to specify the alternative postal payment method being used.

The decision to eliminate next-day delivery of First Class mail could cost a typical large U.S. company up to $100 million each year by making it significantly harder to collect from customers quickly, according to new research from REL Consulting.

All Post Offices nationwide will be open on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. Commercial customers should check with their Business Mail Entry Units for hours of operation. Mail delivery will be the same as any other Saturday.

Now the Congressional silliness regarding Postmaster General Pat Donahoe has gone bipartisan. Rep. Dennis Ross indicated a few days ago that Donahoe should be fired—apparently for bowing to pressure from 20 senators and agreeing to a mostly meaningless moratorium on the closing of postal facilities. The Republican subcommittee chairman’s attack comes less than two weeks after Democratic Congressman Peter DeFazio said Donahoe should be canned for trying to save money by lowering the Postal Service’s delivery standards.

Can Donahoe focus on building new revenue sources or developing long-range plans, the way the CEO of any other multibillion-dollar business would? Nope,

Despite all the talk of restructuring and downsizing at the U.S. Postal Service, its labor costs have hardly budged in the past year. With employees working more overtime and relatively few retiring, the agency’s cost of salary and benefits inched down by barely 1 percent during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2011. So far this (calendar) year, the decline is a paltry 0.2 percent lower than the same time last year. In contrast, USPS projects that its revenues will decrease nearly 3 percent this fiscal year.

One barrier to cost cutting is a slowing attrition rate. In the Postal