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Another Postage Rate Increase Expected January 2023

October 20, 2022

The USPS has requested rate increases for both nonprofit and commercial postage rates that will go into effect on January 22, 2023. The proposed rates need approval from the Postal Regulatory Commission, which we anticipate will happen.

The rate increases range from 1 to 15.1 percent, depending upon the class and type of mail. The MailSmart Logistics team has a detailed listing of the before and after postage rates for both commercial and nonprofit mail categories and can advise you on the potential impact on your mailing programs.

As always, MailSmart Logistics will help you get the absolute best rates possible through commingling, drop shipping, or a combination of the two. We analyze every mailing for our clients to determine the most cost-effective strategy to meet your delivery and budget goals.

Please let us know if we can answer any questions or help you with your 2023 postage budget planning.

Your MailSmart Logistics Team

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Labor Day Commingling Schedule

July 31, 2017

The Labor Day holiday will alter pick-up and drop dates for your commingled mail. To ensure your campaigns arrive in a timely manner, please keep in mind the following dates for the upcoming three-day weekend.

As always, we’ll help you plan appropriately to meet your deadlines. Please don’t hesitate to reach out your MailSmart Logistics representative with any questions or concerns.

 

 

Levittown, PA | Duncan, SC | and Milwaukee, WI Commingle Schedule 
Pickup Drop Date
September 
Friday, September 1, 2017 Wednesday, September 6, 2017
No Pickup – Closed Monday, September 4th
Wednesday, September 6, 2017 Saturday, September 9, 2017

 

Arlington, Texas Commingle Schedule
Pickup Drop Date
September 
Friday, September 1, 2017 Wednesday, September 6, 2017
No Pickup – Closed Monday, September 4th
Wednesday, September 6, 2017 Friday, September 8, 2017

 

 Corona, California Commingle Schedule
Pickup Drop Date
September 2017 
Thursday, August 31, 2017 Wednesday, September 6, 2017
Friday, September 1, 2017 Wednesday, September 6, 2017
No Pickup – Closed Monday, September 4th
Tuesday, September 5, 2017 Saturday, September 9, 2017
Wednesday, September 6, 2017 Saturday, September 9, 2017

 

1st Class / All Locations – Days Closed
Monday, September 4, 2017

 

 

 

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The Disappearing USPS Board of Governors

January 12, 2017

The U.S. Postal Service serves a critically-important role in the American economy, responsible for the delivery of over 500 million letters and packages every day.

It is a crucial time in the organization’s history, with ongoing debates as to how to best meet the needs of the American people while dramatically cutting costs.  Should Saturday mail delivery be eliminated?  Should more local post offices be closed?  Should families be required to pick up their mail at centrally-located neighborhood cluster boxes?  Should the entire postal service be privatized?

One would think these momentous decisions would prompt an all-hands-on-deck response.  Instead, the last of the nine members of the USPS’s Board of Governors left office on December 8th.

The Board of Governors functions like a corporate Board of Directors with responsibility for setting postal policies, controlling costs, and selecting the Postmaster General and her deputy.  The nine members are appointed by the President to staggered seven-year terms.  However, the Senate has not approved any of President Obama’s recommended appointments since 2010, and now the terms of all nine Governors have expired.

Is this any way to run a $70 billion organization?

 

MailSmart Logistics provides worry-free shipping at remarkably-low postal rates –
You’re going to love working with MailSmart Logistics!

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Choosing the Best Mail Shop for a Mailing

November 7, 2016

choosing-mail-shop

While most direct mailers recognize the importance of getting multiple printing bids for a mailing, they may not put the same emphasis on getting bids from a variety of mail shops.  Yet it is possible to save just as much money by selecting the perfect mail shop for a job as it is by finding the best printer.

Mail shops tend to specialize on a particular industry and type of mailing.  To find the best mail shop for a specific job, pay attention to the following:

  • Mail shop size:  You want to match the size of the mailing to the size of the mail shop.  If you’re mailing 2 million pieces, you’ll likely get the lowest price and reasonable turn-around times from a mail shop that has invested in high-speed equipment because they specialize in large mailings. If you’re only mailing 1,000 pieces, however, a larger shop will likely charge an exorbitant amount due to their need to cover high set-up costs.
  • Level of automation:  It is also important to find a mail shop offering the appropriate amount of automation for your mailing.  If your mailing requires inserting a personalized letter into a matching envelope, using a mail shop with camera match capabilities will save the cost of paying someone to continually check that letters are being inserted correctly.  Additionally, the presence of high speed insertion equipment will likely reduce your costs on a larger mailing.
  • Ability to comply with low-cost postal strategies:  As the postal logistics world continues to evolve, mail shops need to be adaptable.  At a minimum, they need to keep up with the latest postal regulations to ensure your mailing is prepared correctly.  However, the mail shop also should be open to using any new strategies that your postal logistics firm recommends without charging extra for them.

We recommend getting bids from a minimum of three different mail shops who specialize in the type of mailing you are doing.   This should allow you to identify and take advantage of the mail shop who is anxious to fill a hole in their schedule by submitting a very competitive bid.


MailSmart Logistics provides worry-free shipping at remarkably-low postal rates –
You’re going to love working with MailSmart Logistics!

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How to Increase Profits on Your Direct Mail Services

July 23, 2016

Increase Profits on Mail Services

As printing margins have shrunk in recent years, many companies have expanded into providing direct mail services to their clients.  In order to make this additional revenue stream as profitable as possible, we recommend you follow these strategies:

  1. Pick a specific niche to specialize in. The most successful mailing services focus on just a few types of mailings and invest in the equipment that gives them a competitive advantage for those types of job.  If you specialize in printing high-volume, personalized letters for the financial services industry, for example, your profitability will be enhanced if you use a high-speed, state-of-the-art digital printer and a continuous flow operation.
  1. Reduce costs via postal logistics. In order to cut your client’s postal rates to the bone, you need to make sure each piece of mail is delivered to a postal facility as close as possible to its ultimate destination.  If your mailing is quite large, you can hire a trucking company to drop ship it to various Network Distribution Centers (NDCs) and Sectional Center Facilities (SCFs) across the country.  This requires you to comply with stringent sorting, sleeving, tagging, strapping and paperwork requirements.

Should drop shipping be cost-prohibitive for the mailing you’re processing, you can save almost as much by commingling.  A commingler such as a MailSmart Logistics picks up the mailing from your facility, combines it with mail from other sources to meet minimum quantities, and delivers each piece to postal facilities close to its final destination.  We handle all of the logistical details, including the paperwork, while saving our customers who send letter-size mail an average of 12% on postal costs.

  1. Reduce direct labor costs: With the thin margins in the mailing services industry, direct labor costs can make or break you.  Not only is it advantageous to have a flexible workforce willing to go home early when you’re waiting on approvals, but you should also make sure each employee is cross-trained on multiple pieces of equipment.  Taking advantages of opportunities to outsource labor-intensive operations (such as sleeving, tagging and strapping your mailing) can also significantly help your bottom line.

For more information about how to maximize the profitability of your mailing services, please read our free eBook titled “Maximizing Your Mail House’s Profits”:

MailHouseSpiralNS

 MailSmart Logistics provides worry-free shipping at remarkably-low postal rates –
You’re going to love working with MailSmart Logistics!

 

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Will Reduced Postal Rates Increase Mail Volume?

April 18, 2016

ReducedRatesIncreaseMail

After years of fighting, direct mailers finally succeeded in forcing the U.S. Postal Service to remove the exigent postage rate increase that was designed to offset losses resulting from the recession.   For the first time in 97 years, postal rates actually decreased on April 10th by 4.3%!

This raises an interesting question: Are direct mailers going to use the savings to increase their mail volume or are they going to pocket the difference?

One way to predict mailer response is to look at price elasticity data, which estimates how many more people will purchase something if its price decreases by a certain amount.  Fortunately, the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Postal Service analyzed postal price elasticities for different categories of mail in 2013.  By averaging their estimates for the four years following the worst of the recession (2009 – 2012), we can make some predictions.

First, as price elasticity would predict, consumers have met the price decrease with a yawn.  According to the USPS’s estimates, the 2 cent decrease in the price of a first-class stamp is only going to result in a 0.4% increase in the number of letters mailed by consumers.

Among commercial bulk mailers who don’t use Enhanced Carrier Route (ECR) processing, the reaction isn’t likely to be much greater.  The 3.4% decrease (from $0.238 to $0.230 for an automated letter sent to a SCF with 3-digit or AADC sorting) is predicted to increase volumes mailed by only 0.8%.

However, mailers who use Enhanced Carrier Route processing are more likely to take advantage of the postal savings to send more mail.  The 4.3% decrease (from $0.256 to $0.245 for Basic Carrier Route letters delivered to a SCF) is predicted to increase the volume of ECR mail sent by 2.7%.

Since this is the probably the only time in our lives that we’re going to experience a postal decrease, let’s have some fun with it.  These are our predictions for how the price decrease will affect mail volume.  Do you agree?  Disagree?  Let us know what you think is going to happen over the next year and earn bragging rights if you’re right!

 

MailSmart Logistics provides worry-free shipping at remarkably-low postal rates –
You’re going to love working with MailSmart Logistics!

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What to Look For When Choosing a Commingling Vendor

April 1, 2016

When Choosing A Commingling Vendor

Congratulations – you’ve made a wise decision to save money on your direct mail and get it delivered faster by using commingling.  Your next step is to choose the best commingling partner for your organization.

Here are some of the factors you should consider:

  • Size of Commingling Operation: Some comminglers process all their mail at a single location with only a limited number of commingling machines.  This can lead to significant delays should they be dealing with a heavy volume of mail when your shipment arrives.  It also costs you shipping time should your production facility be far from their location, and leaves you unprotected should disaster strike.
  • Drop Date Frequency: Another factor to consider is how many times each week the commingler drops the mail.  If time is of the essence, you want your mail to go out as soon as it is processed, not sit around until there is enough volume to drop.
  • Pricing: Make sure you understand all of the potential fees you could be charged.  Many commingling companies use pricing tiers for their quotes and charge extra for additional pickups or trucks – even when your mail is standard weight, standard size!
  • Free Mail Tracking: If returns are not coming in as quickly as expected, your ability to quantify how much of the mailing has not been delivered can be priceless.  In addition, a commingling firm with a strong base of historical data can give you the information you need to ensure your mailing arrives within a particular window, no matter how tight it is.

MailSmart Logistics uses the largest commingling system in the country.  We pick up anywhere in the country and drop mail 3 days each week without fail.  We also lock in a low commingling rate for your organization that covers everything, eliminating any worries about extra fees due to pricing tiers or additional pick-ups.

Finally, because MailSmart Logistics has been providing free mail tracking of every piece we’ve commingled for years, our wealth of data can help you time your mailing perfectly to ensure it arrives within a narrow window of time.

MailSmart Logistics provides worry-free shipping at remarkably-low postal rates –
You’re going to love working with MailSmart Logistics!

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Envisioning the Post Office of the Future

March 21, 2016

Post Office of Future

With 66% of Americans now owning a smartphone, the digital revolution is changing how we communicate, shop and get information.  The U.S. Postal Service is aggressively seeking ways they can capitalize on this massive change by using the fact that they have brick-and-mortar facilities in every town to generate new revenue sources.

What could the future of the USPS hold?  Ideas range from relatively predictable to seemingly crazy:

  • Informed delivery mail notification: This service, already being tested in Northern Virginia and New York City, sends subscribers emails every morning with photos of each piece of mail they’ll receive in their mailbox that day.   If subscribers are interested in a mail piece, they can click on a link to a pertinent webpage that is included in the email.  Surprisingly, early testing has indicated that direct mail marketers are seeing a tenfold increase in response rates among subscribers to this service.
  • E-Government: Post offices could provide service centers or kiosks in their lobbies for customers to access federal, state and local government services.  Options include TSA Pre-Check, notary public services, document verification for benefits and services, motor vehicle license renewals, processing of payments such as property taxes, and fingerprinting.
  • Digital Identity: By linking an electronic address to a physical address, the USPS could verify senders’ identities and increase the security of online transactions.  Wouldn’t it be nice if this service could also be used to cut down on spam?
  • Financial Services: Having sold $21 billion worth of money orders in 2014, the U.S. Postal Service is already the largest provider of paper money orders in the U.S.  The USPS also currently offers prepaid cards, international money transfers and limited check cashing.

The Postal Service is seriously considering additional financial services they could provide to the one in four U.S. households that operates outside the financial mainstream, often without a bank account and forced to rely on costly services such as payday lenders.  Possible services include reloadable prepaid cards, mobile transactions, new ways of transferring money, and potentially even small loans.

The USPS is far behind the postal services of a number of other countries in offering financial services.  For example, the postal services in Switzerland, New Zealand and Italy already earn over two-thirds of their profits through financial services.

  • 3-D Printing: The rapid adoption of 3D printing is changing the way goods are designed, produced and delivered to customers.  By allowing certain types of products to be printed locally, 3D printing has the potential to eliminate up to a third of global air cargo or ocean container shipments.

The USPS is researching the possibility of offering 3D printing centers in local post offices, perhaps through partnerships with 3D printing companies.  As crazy as this might seem, it’s interesting to note that UPS already offers 3D printing services inside many of its retail locations, as does the French postal service.

What services would you most like to see the USPS offering in the future?


MailSmart Logistics provides worry-free shipping at remarkably-low postal rates –
You’re going to love working with MailSmart Logistics!

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