NewsCast

Will Your Rates Rise with R2006?

With the filing of the R2006 rate case in early May, it appears that postage increases are imminent. In case you missed it, here is Lloyd Moss's blog response to the R2006 filing:

The R2006 rate case was filed on May 3, 2006 and is expected to be implemented as early as May 2007. Mailers face much larger postage increases than they did with the January 2006 increases. The "average" percentage increases that the USPS® is stating for each mail class can be very misleading because the changes in presort rate categories make direct comparisons between old and new rates impossible in some cases. The real increases that many mailers face may be far greater than the "average" rate increases.

Prices are now determined by the shape of the mail piece. Parcels are the most expensive to process and will now cost the customer a lot more to mail. Flats are more expensive to process than letters and the proposed rates reflect this as well. In Standard Mail®, there is a new category called an "NFM" which stands for "Not Flat Machinable" and has rates in-between those of a flat and a parcel. Many mail pieces previously classified as a flat will be reclassified as an NFM or parcel, adding considerable cost.

Some presort and drop ship discounts are being eliminated and this will have a big impact on some mailers. Affected are First-Class™ letter mailers who mail at the Automated Carrier Route rate and Standard Mail® class letter mailers that claim Destination Delivery Unit (DDU) discounts.

Standard mailers will see a nine percent "average" increase, but many mailers – particularly those who mail flats – will see larger increases. Current non-automation flat presort categories are being replaced by a larger number of presort categories, all of which represent significantly greater increases than the stated nine percent "average."

Many Periodicals mailers will see increases far in excess of the average 11.9 percent Outside County increase because the USPS® is going to charge 85 cents per sack or pallet. Though this is supposed to create additional financial incentives for comailing and copalletization, this is not always possible. For some short run national publications, these container charges can add up to a substantial portion of the total postage. The good news is that drop ship discounts will now be available on the Editorial content of a publication, which should encourage drop shipping all Periodicals mailings.

The dropping of electronic ACS™ fees, coupled with the offering of even lower fees for letter mail using OneCode™ ACS™, opens up the ACS™ program to all mailers to acquire change of address data easily and inexpensively. The OneCode™ ACS™ program uses the new 4-State Barcode instead of the POSTNET™ barcode. OneCode™ customers are encouraged to update their address information with changes quickly by providing the first two notices free before charges begin to accrue on these addresses.

The R2006 rate case lays the foundation for other regulatory changes to change mailer behavior to do a better job of addressing their mail and producing mail that the USPS® can more easily process and deliver. On top of the rate case, mailers must also look at regulatory changes that are scheduled or likely to take effect in 2007. The rate case itself changes the economics of some of these rule changes.

A good example is the CASS™/MASS™ Cycle L mandate to do primary address validation (street numbers) using the DPV™ file beginning in August of 2007. DPV™ will drop coding rates depending on the quality of the address list processed. The rate case has increased the spread between automated and non-automated rates, thus increasing the cost of this mandate and making it worthwhile for mailers to adapt strategies and use products that can improve coding rates. Mailers who are not already using DPV™ should immediately start testing this feature to measure the impact the mandate will have.

The proposed ACS™ pricing in the rate case also puts the USPS® in a better position to impose Move Update requirements for Standard Mail®, as already exist for First-Class™. This was proposed in a Federal Register filing several years ago, but was never implemented. Availability of a low-cost way to comply using ACS™ may breathe new life into this proposal and is a good example of how the rate case can ‘enable’ future regulatory changes.

Over the coming months, the USPS® is likely to build on this rate case foundation with more proposed regulatory changes. Mailers who look at changes in their process and “deliverables” (mail) to minimize the impact of the R2006 changes will be in a much better position to avoid be adversely affected by future rate cases. Group 1 Software and the Pitney Bowes organization are ready to help mailers with the products and services that will help them minimize the impact of both the R2006 rate case and the regulatory changes that will follow.

Lloyd Moss is Director of Postal Affairs and Presort Solutions for Group 1. For more blogs related to your business issues, please visit G1Blog at http://blog.g1.com/

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Horizons 2006: The Session Descriptions are Now Online!

With July just around the corner, we know you’re itching to see what this year’s Users Conference has to offer you. Well, the wait is over – the Horizons 2006 session descriptions are now available online! Visit the Sessions page of the Users Conference Web site – http://www.g1.com/uconf/sessions.asp – to explore the topics and information that will be covered.

The sessions are divided into tracks: Regulatory Information, Postal Optimization and Tracking, Address Quality, Business Geographics, Customer Data Quality, Document Composition, Electronic Document Management, Data Integration, General and Advanced Information and Hands-On Product Labs. While you’re perusing the Horizons 2006 offerings, don’t miss our exciting Regulatory Compliance and Enforcement session:

Regulatory Compliance and Enforcement
Are you really complying with USPS® postal regulations for earning those postal discounts you have been taking? What could happen if you are not? Join Ian Volner, Attorney and Partner at Venable LLC and Lloyd Moss, Director of Postal Affairs and Presort Solutions at Group 1 to learn about how the United States Postal Inspection Service®, the USPS® Revenue Assurance and the Department of Justice are enforcing USPS® regulations. Having worked for many years on postal regulation in the fields of mass media, telecommunications law, advertising and direct marketing, Mr. Volner is sure to provide a few invaluable insights into postal regulation compliance.

Register Three for the Price of Two!
Don't miss out on this great opportunity to save – register three Users Conference attendees for the price of two! To take advantage of this great discount, register online at http://www.g1.com/uconf or via fax at 301-683-6544, Attention UC2006 Registrar. This offer will end on July 21, 2006.

Horizons 2006 will offer you informative sessions presented by Group 1 associates and leading industry experts, along with hands-on product labs and the opportunity to interact with our Technical Support Representatives in person. In addition to these great conference opportunities, we are offering several Intensives on the Monday and Tuesday preceding the conference, and are providing both a User Orientation and a Guest Orientation on Tuesday evening.

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Group 1 University: New Spring Classes and Pre-Conference Intensives

New Spring Classes
For times and additional information, please visit the Group 1 University Web site, http://www.g1.com/Education.

MailStream Plus - Dispatcher4
Lanham, MD – June 29 - 30, 2006

StreamWeaver Development Using Visual Engineer Workshop
Downer's Grove, IL – June 5 - 8, 2006

Finalist Workshop
Lisle, IL – June 15, 2006

VeriMove Workshop
Lisle, IL – June 16, 2006
Chicago, IL (Users Conference) – July 24, 2006

Pre-Conference Intensives
Come early to the Users Conference and attend the Pre-Conference Intensives! Unless otherwise noted, the intensives are $500 per student. They will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the following dates:

Monday, July 24, 2006
Introduction to Data Quality (NEW CLASS!)
VeriMove
Message1 Series 5*
DOC1 Series 5 (Basic)**

Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Merge/Purge Plus
MailStream Plus
DOC1 Series 5 (Quick Start)*
DOC1 Series 5 (Basic)**

* If you attend both the Message1 Series 5 class and the DOC1 Series 5 (Quick Start) class, you will receive $100.00 off the total cost of the classes.
** DOC1 Series 5 (Basic) is a two-day class. The price is $1500.

The cost for each class includes breakfast, lunch, and a snack on the day(s) it is held. For more information, please visit the Pre-Conference Intensives page of the Users Conference Web site at http://www.g1.com/UConf/intensives.asp. To register, please visit http://www.g1.com/Education and choose online registration.

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Group 1 Adds a Contact Information Page to the Support Site

In response to customer requests, we've put together a Contact Information page – http://www.g1.com/Support/Contact – on the Group 1 Support site. The Contact Information page contains a listing of departmental contact email addresses, as well as phone and fax numbers broken out by department: Technical Services department (plus Sales and Maintenance and Renewals). Links to this page can be found within the Technical Support navigation menu on the lefthand side of most pages on the Support site as well as from the main Technical Services page under the Technical Support heading.

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