Association for Postal Commerce "Representing those who use or support the use of mail for Business Communication and Commerce" "You will be able to enjoy only those postal rights you believe are worth defending." 1800 Diagonal Rd., Ste 320 * Alexandria, VA 22314-2862 * Ph.: +1 703 524 0096 * Fax: +1 703 997 2414 Postal News for September 2014 September 30, 2014 Marketwired: LSO, formerly Lone Star Overnight, a leading regional parcel carrier, today announced exclusive pricing based on parcel package size for their customers' Ground shipments. Recently, the two major global carriers had announced a major shift in pricing for Ground parcel shipping for 2015 based on package size, also known as dimensional weight pricing that will significantly and negatively impact the bottom line for many shippers. USPS Mailers’ Scorecards: What Does the Data Say? Join us for a Webinar on October 14 Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat now at: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/263639376 The USPS plans to begin the invoicing process for Full-Service Intelligent Mail® in January 2015. Do you understand the Mailer Scorecards and the impact they will have on your operations? Join PostCom for a webinar on Tuesday, October 14, 2014 at 1:00 Eastern as Bob Schimek, Senior Director of Postal Affairs for Satori Software, Inc. will discuss the newly expanded Mailers Scorecard. • What is driving the changes? • How it connects with the USPS initiatives for Full Service, eInduction, and Seamless. Title: USPS Mailers’ Scorecards: What Does the Data Say? Date: Tuesday, October 14, 2014 Time: 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EDT After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar. Canoe: Postal workers could start reporting potholes, messy yards and burned out street lights as part of a new City of Edmonton pilot project. Council’s community services committee voted Monday to move forward with a plan to have Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) employees make reports using the city’s 311 app. Council wrote to Canada Post in June expressing concerns with its plan to end door-to-door delivery, and will send another letter to CEO Deepak Chopra stating that the city is willing to explore the expansion of roles for letter carriers. CUPW put forth numerous proposals of added services, including selling bus passes and pet licences at doors and providing wellness checks on people who have trouble leaving home. Brand Republic: TNT, the postal service, is launching its first TV ad campaign for four years, in a bid to humanise the brand. The campaign forms part of a marketing strategy to make the brand more personal and will be supported by the launch of the strapline, "The people network". Created by Amsterdam-based Etcetera/DDB, the drive will include TV, digital film, radio, print and outdoor, and shows a TNT truck constructed out of TNT employees. Arutz Sheva: The Histadrut (national labor federation) has called for a renewal of sanctions to be imposed today due to the ongoing, unresolved crisis between postal workers and the Ministry of Finance. Sanctions will now include the striking of all courthouse employees, including clerical and administrative staff. The public will not be received today, as well. Post offices will continue to refuse to process all court-, police-, and municipal-imposed fines. In addition, Israel Post has resumed all sanctions. Post & Parcel: Danish-Swedish postal operator PostNord has secured a distribution deal with Danish freight company Blue Water Shipping. Blue Water Shipping is an international transport firm based in Denmark, which operates in 30 countries across the globe. The agreement with PostNord, state-owned parent company of Swedish Post and Post Danmark, will see the postal company distributing parcels and pallets assembled by Blue Water Shipping for destinations in the Nordic region. The Guardian: Royal Mail shares closed below 400p on Monday for the first time since they floated in October last year, and there has been no recovery in early trading. They are currently down 1.2p at 397.2p, although still well above the 330p flotation price which led to criticism the company had been sold off too cheaply by the government. St. Petersburg Times: U.S. online auction mega-site eBay plans to expand its Russian services by opening its website to some of Russia's largest online stores, business daily Vedomosti reported Monday, citing retailers involved in the project. Russian vendors such as X5 Retail Group and Wikimart will begin selling their goods via eBay's marketplace on Tuesday, the newspaper said. While many international companies have put expansion plans on hold amid a chill in Russia's political relations with the West, as well as economic sanctions, eBay has stood by its commitment to expansion in the Russian market. Business Review: Belgian postal services operator bpost was the sole interested party in submitting a non- binding offer on Tuesday for a 51 percent stake of the Romanian Post, writes Mediafax. Derry Journal: Sinn Féin Councillor Colly Kelly has called for postal companies in the North to offer an all- Ireland tariff in order to reduce the cost of sending cross-border letters. Global Address Data Association Newsletter September 2014 has been posted on the GADA web site. eCommerceBytes: There's a lot of talk about how postal services around the world can survive given falling letter volume, and some are experimenting more than others. One such entity is Australia Post, which has launched a program this year that brings it into the world of ecommerce. In May, Australia Post signed an agreement with the Alibaba Group to set up its own branded storefront on Tmall, the Chinese B2C marketplace, where it is helping small and medium-sized businesses from Australia sell their products to shoppers in China. The postal service then provides the logistics required by retailers to ship orders from Australia to their buyers in China. From the Federal Register: Postal Regulatory Commission NOTICES Market Test of Experimental Product-Customized Delivery , 58831–58832 [2014–23241] [TEXT] [PDF] Postal Service NOTICES Market Tests of Experimental Products: Customized Delivery , 58832 [2014–23189] [TEXT] [PDF] Office of the Inspector General: • It’s 2024 – Do You Know What You Need? Tea leaves, crystal balls, palm readings: There are lots of ways to try to predict the future . and most of them are useless. Still, careful examination of measurable indicators — and a little imagination — can yield some clues as to what may lie ahead. That’s good news for the U.S. Postal Service, because if there’s anything that faces an uncertain future right now, it’s the nearly 240-year-old institution that delivers your mail every day. To get a sense of what America’s postal needs might be a decade from now and how the Postal Service could fulfill them, we recently undertook a study that included (a) researching projections for more than 80 social, technological, and industrial trends, (b) reviewing hundreds of articles, and (c) interviewing experts. • Customer Retention Audit Report Report Number MS-AR-14-008 September 25, 2014 What the OIG Found. While the Postal Service’s revenue loss from customer churn and defection decreased by from FYs 2012 to 2013, the magnitude of this problem continues to have a significant impact on its revenue and financial outlook. Enhancements to the Postal Service’s current customer retention strategies could mitigate further revenue loss. Specifically, many customers we surveyed cited service and operational issues as key factors in their decision to reduce their business with or leave the Postal Service. To address these issues, the Postal Service needs to implement an effective strategy to promote collaboration among the Sales and operations groups. This approach is in line with best-in-class organizations, which reduce churn and defection by increasing collaboration among the sales and operations groups when handling customer problems. We noted that limited information sharing may also be impeding efforts to retain customers. Leading practices show that retention can improve if departments effectively share information about customers at risk of reducing their spending. Finally, the Postal Service’s retention strategy does not include a process to contact former customers. Leading practices recommend reaching out to former customers to reestablish business relationships. By addressing the issues outlined in this report, which are within its control, the Postal Service could significantly reduce churn and defection. We estimate improvements to the Postal Service’s retention strategies could prevent of revenue loss from customer churn and defection in FY 2014. What the OIG Recommended. We recommended the Postal Service enhance the effectiveness of its customer retention efforts by implementing strategies to promote organization-wide collaboration for handling customer service and operational problems that could lead to churn or defection, effectively sharing information on at-risk customers, and reaching out to former customers September 29, 2014 Radio Prague: The future of Česká pošta (Czech Post) is unclear as key ministers in the centre-left coalition government have differing views as to what to do with the country’s state-owned mail service, Hospodářské noviny reported on Monday. Photo: Tomáš Adamec Photo: Tomáš Adamec Česká pošta has 32,000 employees and an annual turnover of over CZK 20 billion. It has over 3,200 branches in municipalities around the country and administers strategic government IT systems. The postal service comes under the office of the minister of the interior, Milan Chovanec, who wants to halt plans set in train by a previous centre-right government to turn it into a joint stock company ahead of privatisation. Indeed, Mr. Chovanec told Hospodářské noviny his party the Social Democrats, who lead the government, will not countenance a sell-off.