PRC approves USPS’s Standard Mail Pricing Initiative (Summer Sale)
The Postal Regulatory Commission has approved the U.S. Postal Service’s plan to conduct a Standard Mail Pricing Initiative (also known as the “Summer Sale”) this summer. This is a followup to last summer’s inaugural program.
Here’s what the program looks like:
- Incentive period: July 1 to Sept. 30, 2010.
- Products: All Standard Mail letters and flats.
- Control months: June and October.
- Rebate amount: 30% off applicable rate above baseline.
- Baseline: Same Period Last Year (SPLY) + 5% (i.e. 105% of what you actually mailed in the July to Sept. 2009 period)
- Control: Downward adjustment if June or October volume is below baseline (prevents shifting of volume into incentive period)
- Qualification: Customers must have mailed more than 350,000 Standard Mail pieces in the baseline period of July 1 to Sept. 30, 2009. This covers about 3,525 customers, or 67% of Standard Mailers.
Mail service providers (the printers and preparers that physically execute mail and give it to the USPS) are not eligible to aggregate volume on behalf of their customers.
