Postal Rates Affecting Mail Volume
According to ABM legal counsel David Straus, "It’s not a pretty picture."
The Postal Service released volume data for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2007 (July through September), and the numbers represent the first quarter to reflect the rate increase. According to David Straus of Thompson Coburn, legal counsel to the ABM, “It is not a pretty picture.”
Here are some of the main data points:
• Regular rate periodicals volume is down 2.5 percent from the same period last year, and within that category, classroom publications volume dropped 11.8 percent vs. the fourth quarter of last year;
• Standard mail flat volume is down 9.1 percent, with non-profit enhanced carrier route flat volume down by a staggering 21.5 percent.
• First-class flats are down 12.1 percent.
Straus reports that because the new Flats Sequencing System will soon be deployed, if flat volumes continue to decrease, the cost per piece for the Postal Service will go up. He adds, “I think that we will see such continuing declines, especially in Standard mail, as direct marketers modify their mail shape and programs in response to the significant change in rate design that adversely affects flats.”
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