Postal posts price promotion proposals–May 18, 2016

The Postal Service filed with the PRC a set of pricing proposals for promotional discounts starting in January 2017 that nonprofit mailers should take a look at for possible use. The USPS is giving longer notice of promotions that it has in recent years to encourage more customers to take advantage of the deals.

• The proposed 2017 promotional programs are:

• Emerging and Advanced Technology
• Mobile Shopping
• Tactile, Sensory & Interactive Mailpiece Engagement
• Earned Value Reply Mail
• Personalized Color Transpromo
• Direct Mail Starter (New) – This offering will give a temporary postage discount on mailpieces that contain print-mobile technology that, when scanned, leads the recipient to a mobile-optimized website.

The posting also includes what the USPS calls “price increases to correct an anomaly within First-Class Mail Parcels.”

As with all market dominant postal price adjustments, this set is subject to the CPI price cap that now stands at 0.384 percent. The Postal Service states that “percentage change in prices for First-Class Mail is an increase of 0.046 percent [and…] for Standard Mail is a decrease of 0.019 percent.” The Postal Service calculates the new unused rate increase authority after these proposed changes for the First-Class Mail class to be 0.338 percent and for Standard Mail to be 0.403 percent.