United States Postal Service

The U.S. Postal Service's 2014 promotions calendar reprises popular programs with some new wrinkles aimed at increasing use of First Class, shipping, and digital technology. The biggest rate discount being offered, 15 percent, is for a spring promotion for First Class marketing pieces.

One of the bright spots in the Post Office's 2013 earnings report was the 8 percent rise in its shipping business, and one 2014 promotion offers an additional discount for exceeding a threshold for Priority Mail resulting from direct mail efforts.

This year, the Grinch may go postal with an extraordinary rate increase. The U.S. Postal Regulatory Commission is expected to decide whether to allow the U.S. Postal Service to raise rates above the annual inflation rate increase on Dec. 22, on the eve of the holidays.

The proposed exigent increase would raise postal rates three times the rate of inflation for magazines, newspapers and other mail-dependent media beginning Jan. 26, adding hundreds of millions in costs.

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is certainly not doing the direct mail space any favors, requesting an exigent rate increase of 4.3 percent. With postage taking up the better part of 60 percent from the direct mail marketing spend, there's less and less meat on the bone. But the USPS has its own problems, and thus far nothing Postmaster Patrick Donahoe has done could spur Congress into addressing the issue of postal reform.

The U.S. Postal Service ended the 2013 fiscal year with a net loss of $5 billion. “We’ve achieved some excellent results for the year in terms of innovations, revenue gains and cost reductions, but without major legislative changes we cannot overcome the limitations of our inflexible business model,” said Patrick Donahoe, Postmaster General and CEO.

There’s a new stamp that tells the story of a postal mishap that happened in 1918. That year, the U.S. Post Office issued the Curtiss Jenny stamp to celebrate the United States’ first airmail delivery. The stamp was named after the Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny” biplane used for the flight.

But a printing error caused the image of the plane to be printed upside down on a few sheets of 100 stamps. One of those sheets was sold by accident at a The Washington Post office. The clerk had never seen an airplane before and didn’t notice the mistake.

The Southeastern PA Postal Customer Council (SEPCC) has named print and mail services provider ANRO Communications 2013 Mailer of the Year. The United States Postal Service (USPS) awards one company annually from each regional Postal Customer Council.

Do we need six-day delivery? Do we need five? I’m not sure, but I AM sure that we do need a USPS system—including rates—that are economically sustainable and predictable. In that scenario, we lose the uncertainty; we and our mailing customers can finally make reasonable and credible projections of business volume and cash flows.

WASHINGTON, DC—The United States Postal Service (USPS) once again has defaulted on its $5.6 billion prepayment for future retiree health care benefits as it teeters on the brink of not having enough cash to conduct daily business, Reuters reported.

Last week the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) was given 90 days to decide on the U.S. Postal Service's (USPS) request for an 4.3 percent exigent rate increase, but the PRC stands closed as part of the federal government shutdown. If the shutdown lingers, the PRC's deadline could be extended, but mailers are at work mulling contingencies surrounding the proposed increase.

“If the shutdown is temporary, we're assuming that the PRC will try to keep within the original deadline, and if they decide to move forward we'll be quickly able to file some things,” says Jerry Cerasale, SVP of governmental affairs

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe has begged Congress for legislative reforms, including elimination of the annual prefunding payments and allowing the agency to run its own healthcare system.

Without that flexibility to run its own affairs, innovate and raise revenue, Donahoe has said, the agency could require a taxpayer bailout of nearly $50 billion by 2017.

The U.S. Postal Service had been expected to default on the retiree health payment, which it has skipped twice before. The agency has said it is currently losing $25 million every day and has exhausted its borrowing limit.