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USPS Updates for Spring 2011
By Mary Schultz, Production Manager
January 2011

The United States Postal Service (USPS) made two announcements this January that will affect your spring mail campaigns: new postage rates will take effect on April 17, 2011, and the USPS will relax the requirements for transitioning to the Intelligent Mail Barcode (IMB).

“Working together as an industry we can address continuing economic challenges in a way that allows the Postal Service to generate much needed revenue while being more responsive to ongoing customer needs,” Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe said.

The price increase, the first in about two years, will affect First-Class Mail, Standard Mail, Package Services and Extra Services. The average increase across each Mailing Service is limited to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) of 1.741 percent, but price increases for products will vary. The USPS estimates the new rates will generate $720 million over a twelve month period and will help ease their financial difficulties.

When considering your postage budgets for campaigns mailing April 17 and later, you can estimate an increase of 1.8% for mailings taking advantage of First-Class Presort and Standard Nonproft rates. The cost of a one ounce First-Class letter will remain the same at $0.44, but additional ounces will increase to $0.20. Details of the new proposed rates can be found at http://www.usps.com/prices/pricechanges.htm.

The other postal change for the spring is that the USPS will delay enforcing the use of IMB in order to receive automation discounts.

“We heard concerns that we were moving too fast on discontinuing POSTNET coding, and we will continue to offer the automation prices for mail with POSTNET barcodes beyond May 2011,” Donahoe said.

May 2011 was the original deadline for mailers to switch to using the IMB in order to receive automations discounts; mailers using the POSTNET barcode would no longer qualify for this. The longer transition period now means you may continue to use your Business Reply Mail envelopes after May and still receive automation pricing.

Schultz & Williams is a national consulting firm based in Philadelphia providing management, fundraising and marketing consulting for nonprofit organizations, along with full-service direct marketing, database and creative/production services.