Posts Tagged "Mailing Services"

Competition

on Oct 13, 2009 in Strategy & Public Policy | 15 comments

Competition (picture of football helmet representing USPS colliding with the unknown competition)

When the topic of competition for the Postal Service comes up in casual conversation, the discussion usually involves FedEx or UPS. However, packages are a relatively small part of the Postal Service’s business. Certainly, these firms are direct competitors, but are there other competitors for Postal Service business?

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Periodicals

on Aug 17, 2009 in Pricing & Rates | 24 comments

assorted periodicals old and new:  The American Weekly Mercury, Common Sense, Poor Richard's Almanack, U.S. News, Newsweek, The Economist with background of pieces of type

Since the earliest days of the Post Office there has been a public policy goal of promoting the dissemination of information throughout the country. This goal was also part of all 14 of the rate cases conducted under the Postal Reorganization Act. By law, rates had to consider “the educational, cultural, scientific, and informational value to the recipient of mail matter.” This provision generally tempered the increases for Periodicals, or at least kept the “institutional cost burden” for Periodicals to a minimum. In fact, in the final rate case in 2006 before the new price cap system of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act took effect, the “markup” on Periodicals was only 0.2 percent. Periodicals prices were set so that revenue was only 0.2 percent above attributable costs. The average for all mail was 79.3 percent.

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A New Kind of Post Office?

on Nov 19, 2008 in Post Offices & Retail Network | 29 comments

future.jpg

The Woodfield Station located in Schaumburg, Illinois is an innovative, new retail environment that tests the limits of how the United States Postal Service interacts with customers and sells products and services. Dubbed the “Retail Learning Lab,” this completely redesigned post office serves as a testing ground for new products, new methods of serving customers, and new models for partnering with commercial businesses.

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