Good news from the economy suggests that the Consumer Price Index rose slightly, but fell overall vs. April 2008. Direct marketers rejoice.
The United States Postal Service (USPS) raised postage rates in May 2009. Since 2001 the rates have slowly crept upwards from $0.34 to $0.44, but there appears to be light at the end of the tunnel. Despite record losses the USPS remains duty bound by regulatory law to hold market-dominant postage rates as-is for the remainder of 2009. Market-dominant is a nice way of saying government monopoly.
Postage rates are pegged to the CPI, so the 0.7% year-over-year drop means we pay $0.44 until 2010. There is a catch. USPS can ask Congress for a waiver just in case there’s an emergency rate hike needed. Hey, what are the odds Congress would allow the post office to raise rates?
The Wall Street Journal tackled the issue yesterday. Ms Chen makes her point. Read her article here. I’ll take and spin it to our advantage. We see rate hikes and cringe, but behind every cloud is a silver lining. With a little help from Uncle Sam, we’ll keep our costs under control.
Don’t get me wrong. We don’t like rate hikes. Worse still it looks like the government could move to a five-day delivery cycle and shut down a few branches to save money, but hasn’t for some reason. We all know that as costs continue to eat through USPS capital it’ll be the customer that pays for mismanagement.
We Americans are not alone. Check out this piece on the impending Royal Mail strike. Dude, what is this world coming to?
Dialog Marketing advice:
B2B direct marketers should scrub, clean, slash and hone in on only the best targets for any direct marketing campaign. We make money on a per mailer basis, but we want a better response rate (22%) and better ROI. Stop sending junk mail. Start sending the good stuff. Take the post office out of the equation with a Dialog Marketing campaign.
Comments