Standard Mail $.02-$.03 rate reduction proposed by PRC

NOTE: THIS IS ONLY PROPOSED AT THIS POINT - NOT YET APPROVED

This morning I received the following pleasant news update from the DMA regarding a temporary rate reduction proposed on all Standard USPS mail:

The Postal Regulatory Commission May 25 offered interim rate relief for Standard Regular flats and catalog mailers in response to the U.S. Postal Service Governors’ request to reconsider the recommended rates in March.

The PRC’s decision grants a temporary rate reduction of 3 cents for all Standard Mail regular flats and 2 cents for Standard Regular nonprofit flats. The temporary transitional rate relief for Standard Regular flats mailers would end Sept. 29.

click to read full story...

They would not require any software change be made but simply a blanket 3 cents per Standard Mail Flat and 2 cents per Non-Profit Standard Mail Flat to be deducted from the overall postage statement.

Mailers concerned should contact their USPS postal reps and support this PRC recommendation.

USPS Rate Change - What do you think?

May 14th, 2006 will go down in history as the most confusing day in mailers history. Unfortunately many people did not install the new presorting software on development machines and get them fully tested before the big date and tried to frantically switch over on May 14th. The tech support team at Firstlogic was overwhelmed with calls - specifically in their Presort support dept. Complaints regarding the post office rejecting their mail, confusing new requirements and general upset due to the increase in postage as a result of the new rate case. Mailers are experiencing anywhere upwards of $.10 per piece increase - the highest increase in standard mail that I can remember.

I saw a post on the DM News website that the USPS claimed the new rate case implementation was going smooth - however it is quite different on the ground in speaking to mailers and software support technicians.

Per the below excerpt from DM News page, it looks as though the Postal Regulation Committee is considering reverting the Standard Flat Mail rate change due to the "rate shock" occurring:

The Governors of the USPS asked that the rates for this category of mail be reconsidered because the price increases recommended by the PRC may impose an unnecessary degree of “rate shock” on the catalog industry and small businesses particularly. The recommended increase for some catalog mailers is as much as 40 percent, which is more than double what the Postal Service had proposed.

Here is a poll to find out your opinion of the new rate case. Please vote and let me know your comments on this.

What is DPV (Delivery Point Validation)?

Mailers today who do not use a DPV service are either really out of the loop or they don't really care whether their mail actually arrives or not.



I've been in the category of "really out of the loop" until recently when I became aware of the pitfalls of not using a DPV service to ensure your mailing address is deliverable.



Let's say you process your mailing list through a standardization service without DPV and then try to merge all duplicates together in your database. If you do not validate down to DPV level, you may be losing address data and names from your list . DPV validation will tell you that the mail will actually get delivered to a delivery POINT which other validation levels can not do. ZIP4 encoding can only give you the general range of zip codes and tell you whether or not these are valid ranges, but for all you know you may be mailing to an empty lot or a torn down building, not to mention the high rises that won't deliver your mail without that apartment number.



So mailers who are interested in keeping their lists in good shape should choose some form of DPV solution. I am looking into the PostalSoft validation which is described on their website:

Delivery Point Validation (DPV)

By adding delivery point
validation to your data cleansing process, you can bring data
validation to finer precision. A DPV solution:

• Determines whether a particular address — a specific house number,
  apartment number, or suite number — is known to the USPS (United States
  Postal Service) as a valid point for delivering mail, which helps
  reduce mail-order fraud.
• Identifies whether an address is a Commercial Mail Receiving Agency
  (CMRA), such as The UPS Store, which can reduce fraudulent credit card
  orders.
• Increases the accuracy of matched records and helps create a more
  accurate view of each customer, resulting in more sophisticated
  marketing campaigns, such as loyalty programs, or more highly
  personalized offers.

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