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Postage Rate Increase – PMSI Direct will save you postage costs!

The U.S. Postal Service will be charging higher postage rates effective January 26, 2014.

Letters and Postcards

• Regular 1st class letter (1 oz.) will increase from 46 to 49 cents. A single stamp covers a one ounce letter.
• Additional ounces will cost a penny more, at 21 cents each.
• Postcard rates also go up a penny, to 34 cents.
• Bulk mail rates and the cost of mailing periodicals such as magazines, will go up by 6%.

Packages will see a number of increases:

• First Class package rate (used for domestic mail up to 13 ounces) goes up an average of 5%. For instance, there's a flat rate for the first 3 ounce, and it goes up 24 cents, to $1.93.
• Media mail rate (used for books, DVDs and CDs) goes up an average of 6.3%.
• Most flat rate Priority remains the same. One exception is the large flat rate box, which goes up 60 cents.
• Priority Express (formerly called Express mail) will increase on average 3%. There will also be a new option for 10:30 am delivery, costing an extra $5 — so if it absolutely must get there by the morning, you now have this option as long as you are willing to pay extra.

In a few sizes, Priority Express package rates and Priority Regional box rates may actually go down slightly. But as a whole, the rates are increasing.

Back in September the Postal Service requested the rate hikes as "exigent" (emergency) increases needed to make up for losses due to the Great Recession of 2008-2009. The Postal Regulatory Commission, which has oversight, approved the changes in a 2 to 1 split decision, but refused to make them permanent. However, it's not clear how long "temporary" will be.

Any mailings up through January 25th will be at the old rates.

Many small businesses have already moved toward electronic communications. Electronic invoicing, direct payroll deposit, electronic bill payment, email marketing instead of printed mailers, and other techniques cut down on paper and attendant postage costs.

But electronic is not always feasible. Here are a few other techniques to consider, in order to guard your bottom line.

• Call PMSI Direct at 732.465.1570 x106 to ask how we can save you postage dollars and speed-up Postal delivery. We standardize your addresses, append a delivery point barcode, and presort your mailings to achieve the maximum postage discounts for your direct mail campaigns, every time!
• Have an outdated address list? PMSI Direct will identify all "Moved" addresses and submit to you the NEW address so you can update your address file with a touch of a button.
• If you process your mailings in-house without postage discounts, we can co-mingle your mailing with all our customers' mailings so we can save you postage and you'll receive faster delivery.
• PMSI Direct consolidates your mailings and will save your company postage costs by delivering your mailings to the Delivering Post Office, thus saving you valuable dollars.

Many times, the postage savings is greater than our cost to prepare your mailings so you save money for all your mailings.

Our Postage Experts can answer any questions you may have about saving on postage costs and realizing faster postal delivery. Call us today at 732.465.1570 x106 to find out more.