August 29, 2018

The Postal Service shocked the nonprofit mailing world, and many other mailers, when it posted a surprise Federal Register Notice on August 23.  Everyone should read the actual notice here.  Although postal staffers have tried to soften the blow by characterizing the Notice as a “trial balloon,” “market research,” and “just gathering information,” this is no way to treat your customers!

The operative sentence is:

This proposed change would limit all USPS Marketing Mail, regular and nonprofit, letter-size and flat-size, to content that is only paper-based/printed matter; no merchandise or goods will be allowed of any type regardless of “value.”

Of course, the USPS knows, or should know, that many of its nonprofit customers include front-end and back-end premiums with their Marketing Mail (formerly Standard Mail).  This proposed rule potentially would disallow all premiums.  (Some have taken solace in the assumption that the mention of paper would protect premiums that are made of paper.  But the very ambiguous sentence does say that no merchandise or goods will be allowed of any type regardless of “value.” So, until it is clarified or withdrawn, we must assume “no merchandise or goods” means none.)

As an aside, changes of this type should first be vetted by the Postmaster General’s Mailers Technical Advisory Committee (MTAC), of which the Alliance and several other nonprofit associations are active members.  It is a mystery and a blunder that this proposal went straight to the Federal Register, causing major unnecessary angst to some of USPS’s most loyal customers.

The Alliance is going to send its own comments in to the Postal Service.  Of course, it will be imperative that as many nonprofits and their service providers as possible send in comments about their own use of merchandise in Marketing Mail and the potential impact of this very poorly-conceived proposal.

The Alliance will send detailed suggestions and instructions for comments to all of our members, sponsors, friends and allies next week after the holiday weekend.  We urge everyone to participate before the comment deadline of October 22, 2018.

For those who can’t wait:

Mail or deliver written comments to the Manager, Product Classification, U.S. Postal Service, 475 L’Enfant Plaza SW, Room 4446, Washington, DC 20260-5015. Comments and questions can also be emailed to ProductClassification@usps.gov using the subject line “USPS Marketing Mail Content Eligibility.”