Catalogers Get Small Postal Increase!
Who do catalogers have to thank for the relatively slight postal rate increase announced yesterday? The American Catalog Mailers Association (ACMA), Hamilton Davidson, ACMA’s Executive Director and their Board of Directors.
Davidson’s initial assessment is that catalogs got a 1% lower increase than levied on other mailers. The average increase in Standard Mail Flat’s is 2.3% while the average rate hike for carrier route flats is 4.3%. What a huge victory compared to the 20% to 40% catalog mailers suffered before!
You know the difference? It was ACMA working with postal management and regulators to:
• Help them understand the catalog industry
• Show how absolutely dependent catalogs are on the USPS
• Understand the need for catalogers to prospect to grow the business
• Explain how postal increases negatively affect USPS’ volume which is down considerably in the last two years
• Bring catalog business owners to postal hearings to discuss the effects of postal changes
While Davidson appreciates the pricing news, he points out, “It isn’t curative.” And I’ll add there can be “no free lunch” forever for non-members of ACMA. ACMA is seriously under budgeted for what they need to do in the future with not only postal increases which now can go up annually by CPI and catalog choice type movements. I hope many other catalogs will join ACMA to fund the work of Hamilton Davidson and ACMA. Thanks to everyone that had a hand in this victory!
Curt Barry is president of F. Curtis Barry & Company, a multichannel operations and fulfillment consulting firm with expertise in multichannel systems, warehouse, call center, inventory, and benchmarking; Learn more online at: http://www.fcbco.com
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