Postal Technology International has reported that "Finnish operator Itella will be testing online newspaper delivery with the electronic iPad reading device at the end of the year. The test will be executed in cooperation with the Borgåbladet newspaper. In the test, the electronic version of the newspaper will be delivered to NetPosti, an electronic mailbox provided by Itella. The objective is to involve five to 10 mail recipient households who already participate in the experiment carried out in Anttila, Porvoo, concerning the electronic delivery of letter mail."

The Maritime Union of Australia has reported that "ITF campaign to get message of workers' rights across to global delivery firm UPS starts in Sydney and does the world rounds. The global Action Day was kicked-off in Oceania by members of the Australian Transport Unions Federation (RTBU, TWU and MUA) led by the ITF President Paddy Crumlin (MUA). The group of top union leaders and truck, train and maritime workers protested outside the UPS facility near Sydney Airport."

The Standard has reported that "Canada Post is promising to return mail delivery to some north St. Catharines residents — if the city installs a sidewalk in front of their homes. About 25 irate residents of the south side of Lakeshore Rd. between Vine and Geneva streets descended on St. Catharines MP Rick Dykstra's office Wednesday morning to complain about Canada Post's sudden cancellation of their mail service."

The Detroit News has reported that "Rain, sleet, and snow can't stop postal carriers from completing their rounds -- but the fear of bedbugs has halted mail delivery to a senior citizen high-rise apartment building. The decision to stop delivering mail to the Warren West Apartments came last week, after a mail carrier encountered exterminators in the lobby, postal officials said. When the carrier was informed the building was being sprayed for bedbugs, she decided to stay away."

The Washington Post has reported that "The U.S. Postal Service, headed toward a loss of at least $7 billion this fiscal year, opened contract talks with its largest union Wednesday seeking cost cuts that could reshape the nation's mail-delivery system. In addition to concessions on wages, health benefits and working conditions, the Postal Service says it must pare its full-time workforce and expand the use of part-timers to stay afloat. Postal officials said that with declining workloads -- Americans have sent 20 percent fewer letters and packages since 2007 -- they can no longer guarantee eight-hour shifts for clerks, mail handlers, carriers and other workers. A shift to part-time and seasonal work will probably be just one sticking point in contract talks that could be the most acrimonious in years as the economic slump and the shift to the Internet continue to eat away at the Postal Service's core business. Union officials said that while they recognize the Postal Service's precarious finances, they will fight to preserve hard-won working conditions and benefits that include the most generous health-care package in the federal government. Negotiations could last six months to a year, Postal Service officials say. If arbitrators step in, the Postal Service could ask Congress to pass legislation that would require them to consider the agency's financial condition." See also GovExec.

According to Modern Materials Handling, "When it comes to versatility and cost, wood, plastic and steel pallets are still the kings of the hill when it comes to the materials used for pallet construction. Together, they account for more than 90% of the pallets on the market. Still, increasing freight costs, new export regulations, and growing concerns over product contamination have pallet users looking for alternatives to traditional pallets."

Online Media Daily has reported that "Coupon Clippers Flocking To Online Deals. The majority -- 54% -- of U.S. coupon users now get their fill of deals online. Still, 80% of U.S. respondents report receiving their coupons in newspapers, and 69% said they prefer receiving coupons by mail."

September 1, 2010

Bloomberg Business Week has reported that "Amazon.com Inc. has approached media companies including Time Warner Inc. with plans to start an online video subscription service to rival Netflix Inc., said three people with knowledge of the talks."

The Postalnews Blog has reported that "In comments filed with the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) this week, Netflix has accused Gamefly, the game rentals-by-mail company, of attempting “to manipulate the Postal Service, through the PRC, into offering it favorable mailing rates.” Netflix also issued a warning that a decision in GameFly’s favor could “result in reduced DVD shipment growth from Netflix as well as accelerate the ultimate decline of DVD shipments as Netflix would shift more resource to the digital delivery of content”. The PRC is in the process of investigating claims by Gamefly that the USPS gives Netflix a better deal than it offers Gamefly for mailing DVDs."

The following reports were posted today on the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General website (http://www.uspsoig.gov/).  If you have additional questions concerning a report, please contact Wally Olihovik at 703.248. 2201, or Agapi Doulaveris at 703.248.2286.

• Business Mail Entry Units Mail Verification Procedures (Report Number MS-AR-10-005)
• Internal Controls over Powered Industrial Vehicles at Sites Without the Powered Industrial Vehicle Management System (Report Number NO-AR-10-009).
• Postal Service Patent Management (Report Number DA-MA-10-004)
  Premium Pay at Bedford Park Computerized Forwarding System Unit (Report Number MS-AR-10-006)

The Daily Mail has reported that "Royal Mail workers fiddled figures for nearly four years to try to make the performance of First Class post look more impressive, it was revealed today. An 18-month investigation by the regulator Postcomm today uncovered 'irrefutable evidence' of the 'deliberate and organised' activity. In a devastating analysis, it described how a 'large number' of postmen, including their managers, tried to cheat key performance statistics. Royal Mail has a target that 93 per cent of First Class letters must arrive the next working day after being posted."

As Folio has noted about the business of magazine publishing, "Normally, making a profit is accomplished by one or a combination of two options: reduce expenses and/or raise revenues. Unfortunately for the USPS—outside of work-sharing programs—it can only raise revenues, and exorbitantly so, as in the recent USPS exigent request to raise rates for magazines by 8 percent! This—if continued unabated—could easily close the doors for many printed magazines where a digital alternative is not as effective. Why can’t the USPS reduce its expenses sufficiently to avoid raising rates so much? Union obligations and particularly their retirement benefits. In my opinion, the solution is three-fold: Publishers have aligned themselves with other mailers (overall about 1,000 mailers and associations including the Magazine Publishers Association of America) to form the Affordable Mail Alliance to fight the latest proposed postal rates."

PostCom Members! A special postal issues update on the Postal Service's labor contract negotiations has been posted on this site.

The U.S. Postal Service begins contract negotiations today with the largest of its four unions, the American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO (APWU). The APWU represents employees who work as clerks, mechanics, vehicle drivers, custodians and some administrative positions. The current contract expires midnight, Nov. 20. Three other unions represent most other postal employees. Employees represented by the National Association of Letter Carriers, AFL-CIO (NALC) deliver in metropolitan areas; National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association (NRLCA) employees deliver primarily in rural and suburban areas; and, employees represented by the National Postal Mail Handlers Union, AFL-CIO (NPMHU) work in mail processing plants and Post Offices. Contract negotiations for the NRLCA begin September 13. The NALC and NPMHU begin negotiations next year approximately 90-days prior to the contract expiration date.

American Postal Workers Union President William Burrus told his members that "Every contract negotiation brings special challenges, and this will be no different," APWU President William Burrus said at the opening session. "Mail volume is depressed and revenue is down, but we have faced similar circumstances before. "The history of the Postal Service is replete with forecasts of doom and gloom, but such dire predictions have not prevented us from exploring every opportunity to achieve agreement." "Once again naysayers warn of the imminent demise of the Postal Service," he said. "They demand wholesale changes to the foundation we have built over our 40-year history, ignoring the fact that each provision in the expiring contract has a history of give-and-take, the basic element of contract negotiations." "The road will be difficult and the outcome uncertain, but there are components of an agreement awaiting our discovery. I pledge the best efforts of the American Postal Workers Union to find a way to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement. "

Bloomberg has noted that "The U.S. Postal Service, which lost $5.1 billion in the first half of this year, will seek to cut costs by paring the size of its full-time workforce in contract talks with its largest labor union that start today. “Labor cost is a big piece of our success or not success because it affects prices,” Anthony Vegliante, the service’s chief human resources officer, told reporters in Washington, without discussing bargaining strategies. “We have to look forward and adjust things.” See also the Washington Post.

Baynet.com has reported that "Gilbert Ennis, age 56, of Lanham, Maryland, pleaded guilty today to stealing $59,958.21 in postal stamps from the Marbury Post Office in Charles County where he was the postmaster. As part of his plea agreement, Ennis has agreed to resign from the U.S. Postal Service and pay restitution of $59,958.21 from his federal retirement account."

CEP News (Courier-Express-Postal), published by the MRU Consultancy, has reported that:

’The post’s results have grown considerably more than expected’. Bernard Delpit, La Poste’s CFO, had really good news last week. La Poste’s turnover rose by 3.1% to 10.59bn euros, while the operating result soared by 50% to 678m euros.
TNT’s subsidiary Belgische Distributiedienst (BD) is obviously up for sale. According to unanimous media reports TNT intends to divest Belgium’s leading catalogue delivery service. BD (turnover 2009: 91.6m euros, profit: 8.6m euros) has 27 regional depots in Belgium. Altogether the company dispatches 4bn unaddressed items with its 3,000 self-employed deliverers per year. BD has a market share of 75% in this segment.
Swiss Post’s profit soared while turnover grew moderately in the first half year.
Posten Norden, the merger of Post Denmark and Posten AB, increased its profit despite a decline in turnover in the first half of the year.
Like in the first quarter Posten Norge’s profit significantly increased despite a 2.2% decline in turnover.
In October Deutsche Post will start the Security Cup to eliminate errors in its E-Postbrief service. Teams which want to take part in the search for errors must register themselves and will be seeded with 3,000 euros. The teams have to use their own tools and equipment and must agree to not touch any private data they come across during their work.
More than one million candidates applied for one of the 6,565 jobs at Brazilian Correios in the last weeks.
Deutsche Post could save up to 140m euros annually by outsourcing the entire parcel delivery in Germany.
Qantas Freight will offer its courier and express services under the brand name Qantas Courier in the future.
Belgian La Poste’s rebranding takes shape. In September the new name and logo of bpost will be made popular as part of a media campaign promoting the slogan ’The post is bpost - ready for tomorrow’.
State owned investment trust Khazanah Nasional will decide about the disposal of its 32% stake in Pos Malaysia until the end of this year
Finnish post Itella is testing the digitalisation of letters and subsequent transmission by email since March.
After the difficult business year 2009, GLS Netherlands now records significantly rising parcel volumes.
James Arinaitwe, managing director of Posta Uganda, and some of his executives might stand trial. An investigation which was sanctioned by the parliament comes to the conclusion that Arinaitwe and several managers are guilty of ’abuse of office, influence peddling and nepotism’.
Red faces at Royal Mail. Several thousand households in Scotland unsolicitedly received a porn catalogue. It is still unclear how the brochure, where one may chose from 350 different titles (e.g. ’The Horny Handyman’), could be legally sent through the post.

The MRU, founded in 1992, is the only consultancy in Europe, which has specialised in the market of courier-, express- and parcel services. For large-scale shippers and CEP-services in particular, the MRU provides interdisciplinary advice for all major questions of the market, as there are for example market entry, product design, organisation, and EDP.To learn more about the stories reported above, contact CEP News. (We appreciate the courtesy extended by CEP News to help whet your appetite for more of what CEP offers.)

Multichannel Merchant has told its readers that "Transportation is a huge expense in distribution, so shaving costs in this area is often an operations priority. Simply comparing parcel shipping rates is not enough, however: You need to evaluate all of the associated and trickle-down costs that drive your total transportation spend, including the cleanliness of your customer address data. Your success in controlling costs and providing a positive service experience may directly relate to how well your customer address file is managed and updated. The financial and inventory losses tied to packages that are undeliverable due to bad addresses can be as much as 4% of a marketer’s address file. And with address correction fees costing as much as $10 per incident through some carriers, total costs to support these losses can be debilitating--not to mention the negative effect on the customer shopping experience."

People's Daily has reported that "Private mail will face higher duties under new customs regulations that take effect today, a move widely expected to hamper haiwai daigou, or representative overseas shopping services. The General Administration of Customs will collect duties if the import duty payable on individual mail items is worth more than 50 yuan ($7.34). Previously, the duty on personal mail to and from Hong Kong and Macao was exempt if the value did not exceed 400 yuan ($58.75), and for those to and from other areas, the exemption amount was 500 yuan ($73.44). The change is aimed at fixing loopholes in the tariff system and cracking down on tax evasion through mail, said the announcement."

FoxBusiness has reported that "Dutch postal and express group TNT NV said Wednesday it will increase its rates for sending mail within the Netherlands and to destinations in Europe."

Marketwatch has reported that "Harte-Hanks, Inc. has announced that it had acquired Information Arts (UK) Limited yesterday, August 31, 2010. Information Arts, based in High Wycombe in the United Kingdom, is a provider of data-driven marketing insight to business-to-business marketers across Europe -- and increasingly across the globe. The company delivers a compelling road map of how data insight will dramatically improve multichannel marketing effectiveness and retention programs. This insight is derived from profiling, segmentation, modeling and other analytics, and drives engagements that include marketing data management, data hygiene, data acquisition and data planning."

In response to the wildfires in Russia, local DHL employees have provided their active support in delivering essential goods such as clothes, food, household items and stationery to the affected people. The pro-bono initiative by DHL Express Russia also included the collection of goods as well as a fund raising activity to support the purchase fire fighting equipment and protective clothing for volunteers helping to fight the fires.

Hellmail has reported that:

• IT company Postcode Anywhere will take business stateside next month, as part of a UK Trade and Investment initiative to foster links between British and American companies.

• Swiss Post described its half-year profit as 'pleasing'. In the first half of 2010, Swiss Post generated Group profit of 484 million Swiss francs - an increase of 35 percent on the same period last year. Swiss Post posted good results in all four markets.

• The UK postal regulator Postcomm, today announced that an investigation into Royal Mail’s monitoring of quality of service performance has concluded that the company failed to comply with Licence Conditions 4.8 (a) (ii) and (iii) which relate to independent monitoring of performance. However, the investigation found that the actual quality of service figures had not been affected in any material way, that Royal Mail had not benefitted financially from the conduct investigated and that there was no adverse impact on Royal Mail’s customers.

The Phoenix Business Journal has reported that "The U.S. Postal Service is looking for local retailers to provide services on its behalf. Specifically, the USPS is looking for businesses in the following ZIP Codes: 85016, 85026, 85201, 85224, 85255, 85257, 85258, 85260, 85308 and 85374. Those cover portions of Phoenix, Chandler, Glendale, Mesa, Scottsdale, Sun City and Surprise."

August 31, 2010

The Postalnews blog has reported that "Jerry D. Lane, the former USPS Vice President for the Capitol Metro Area, was found guilty on misdemeanor assault charges in Loudoun County, Virginia District Court on Thursday, and was fined $300."

WNEM has reported that "U.S. Postal Service employees in Saginaw plan to organize an informational picket on Thursday. The demonstration is aimed at informing the public of the benefits of keeping a six-day mail week. According to the Saginaw News, the chief steward for the postal worker's union said federal officials are considering moving all operations out of the city."

The Estonian Free Press has reported that "Estonian Minister of Economics Juhan Parts announced that the partial sale of state-owned Eesti Post will not take place happen before March 2011, when the national Elections for the Parliament are due to take place, Bloomberg reports. There is an absence of unity around the issue from the government according to Parts, who also supported the selling postponement to let the future administration take the decision."

From Online PR News: "Shippers searching for shipping options for are discovering Newgistics. Newgistics has a solid reputation for delivering industry leading results. Shippers' reputations ride on how they deliver. In shipping results are critical. For years Newgistics has supplied competitive shipping options for shippers. If you are looking for a shipping partner, Newgistics is the logical choice. Newgistics is known for quality shipping solutions that reflect well on the reputations of their shippers. For additional information retailers are invited to visit the company web site at http://www.newgistics.com."

From PR Newswire: "Americans hitting the road this Labor Day weekend should consider some advice from the U.S. Postal Service. According to the National Safety Council, nearly 5,900 postal employees have achieved a unique distinction most of us never approach in a lifetime — driving more than 1 million, accident-free miles. No other business comes close."

DMM Advisory: IMb™ Services Update. WEBINARS – MIGRATING TO IMb:  To date, mailers have deposited more than 50 billion mailpieces with Intelligent Mail^® barcodes (IMb). If you haven’t already come onboard, we’d like to remind you that beginning in May 2011, to be eligible for automation discounts on your letter-size and flat-size mailpieces, you’ll need to start using the IMb in place of the POSTNET™ barcode. In May 2011, the POSTNET barcode will be ineligible for automation prices and the IMb must be used to claim automation prices with either the Full-Service option or the Basic option.

The latest issue of Postal Technology International is now available online.

The Courier, Express, and Postal Observer has reported that "Based on what is happening in Great Britain, competition in the mail business in the United States could make it easier for advertisers that are hesitant to use mail or other forms of delivery of printed advertising to manage the process. Clearly having multiple delivery companies marketing services could help expand the market. The largest mailers will likely not need the services similar to those that TNT Post and Royal Mail are offering and continue to use the large printers to manage their needs."

From PR Web: "To educate mailers and the postal industry as a whole about the critical changes happening with the United States Postal Service®, Window Book, Inc. has released an informative, 29-page white paper titled, “Intelligent Mail Full-Service: Critical Steps to Understanding and Implementing.”

The Sentinel Source has reported that "Three Republicans are competing for a chance to challenge Democrat John Shea of Nelson for the District 2 seat on the state’s Executive Council. Among them: James Adams. He is retired from the U.S. Postal Service, where he acted as the chief of staff to three postmasters general. He says that while in that role he was able to cut $14 billion from the budget by eliminating redundant high-level positions. Adams says state spending can be reduced by eliminating redundancy and requiring contractors to bid competitively for state contracts. [EdNote: Go get 'em, Jim.]

Post & Parcel has noted that "Posten Norden has announced that it has improved its operating earnings through long-term cost adjustments during the first half of 2010."

Postal news from Hellmail:

• This week sees a further step forward in a complete rebranding of Belgium's main postal provider (formerly La Poste) to bpost NV.

• Pitney Bowes will reveal innovative ways to automate mail delivery for both public and private Posts at Post Expo, the world’s leading annual event for the international postal, express and mailing industry. At the Copenhagen event, Pitney Bowes will unveil the newest addition to its sorting hardware portfolio designed to automate more offline mail handling processes faster and more accurately. Specific details will be announced at the show on Wednesday, October 6, 2010.

• Hybrid mail provider CFH Docmail has extended its range of on-line mailing services with the introduction of personalised colour postcards. Whether for appointment reminders, invitations, promotional material or other company messages, Docmail’s postcards can be compiled quickly and easily via the online portal at www.cfhdocmail.com.

From the Federal Register: Postal Regulatory Commission   RULES New Postal Products , 53216–53218 [2010–21694] [TEXT]  [PDF] NOTICES New Postal Products , 53353–53355 [2010–21693] [TEXT]  [PDF]