Best Practice Mailing Strategies To Help You Gain The Most From The New USPS® Rates

Posted by Elizabeth Lombard on April 05, 2011 in Mail

Hello everyone!

On April 17th, new pricing takes effect for USPS® Mailing Services products.  To set the record straight, as I seem to get a lot of questions from mailers on this, it was new pricing for USPS® Shipping Services that took place last January.  So this isn’t a second price increase for the same postal services.

Mailing Services, also called “Market Dominant” products, includes First-Class Mail®, Standard Mail®, Periodicals, and Package Services (Library and Media Mail, Bound Printed Matter and Parcel Post®), as well as Extra Services such as Certified Mail™ and Return Receipt.  Pricing is determined by, and capped or limited to the Consumer Price Index ~ which for this price increase is 1.741%.   And what this means is that the overall percentage change for each class of mail cannot exceed 1.741%.  However, within certain price cells of each class there may increase significantly higher than 1.741.  For example, if you happen to be a mailer of Standard Mail® parcels, you can expect an impact to your postage spend in that area of 11%.

One of the more interesting changes is the new “Commercial” category for First-Class Mail® parcels.  This will include Commercial Base, and Commercial Plus FCM parcels.  Today, in order for a mailer to enjoy postal discounts on First-Class Mail®, he or she must have a minimum of 500 pieces of the same shape, such as all letters, all flats or all parcels, sort and prepare them according to postal regulations, and submit to the business mail entry area of the Post Office.  However, with the new FCM Commercial Base pricing, a mailer need only use a qualifying postage payment method such as our Connect+™ Series or new pbSmartPostage™ mailing solutions to enjoy a 15 cent postage savings per parcel.

There are more complex rules relative to the FCM Commercial PLUS category for parcels.  For more detailed information on this new category, and other changes for April 17th, as well as strategies and solutions to mitigate this increase, please join me on April 6th for a free webinar, “Best Practice Mailing Strategies To Help You Gain The Most From The New USPS® Rates” where I’ll be addressing the upcoming USPS® rate change and how you can gain the most from implementing some best practice mailing strategies.  You can also click here to learn more.

As always, your comments and suggestions are most welcome and appreciated!

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Tags: Connect+, Mail, pbSmartPostage, postage, postal rate change, USPS, USPS rate change, USPS rates