USPS Eyes 2004 Mail Reclassification Program
The financially ailing U.S. Postal Service is in the early stages of developing a mail reclassification proposal it hopes to implement by early summer 2004.
With the USPS facing back-to-back deficits of between $1 and $3 billion over the next two years and planning to seek a rate hike of up to 20% for next summer, postal officials hope mail reclassification will lead to increased volumes and revenues.
Officials also hope an overhaul will help them meet and possibly overcome competition from private carriers and electronic commerce and the changing needs of their customers.
Work on the plan to reclassify mail for the second time in more than 100 years began in May, just six years after the USPS merged third and fourth class mail into Standard A and B Mail and changed the name of second class mail to Periodicals and Publications.
The project, which postal officials are calling “product redefinition, is being led by Don O’Hara, executive director, product redesign in the postal service’s pricing and product design department.
“We have broad objectives to come out with a set of products that meet customer needs and reduce the costs for both the postal service and its customers,” O’Hara said in an interview.
It is not clear what form reclassification will take. However, one option is merging of Standard A (advertising) and Standard B (package) mail into a single category, possibly with a new name.
If that happens, it might lead to some changes in the current status and rates for single and bulk mail letters and flats in Standard Mail, O’Hara said.
“With two or three streams of [Standard A and B Mail] processing, we want to minimize them,” he added.
O’Hara noted that mailers might be concerned about changes being made to the content requirement for parcels and packages.
Postal officials, who expect to file the proposed reclassification case with the Postal Rate Commission in mid-winter 2003, are asking direct marketers, catalogers and mass mailers to forward their ideas to O’Hara.
Initially they were asking for those ideas by the end of September, but according to O’Hara they realized that was not enough time. “There is no hard and fast cut off date, he said. Those ideas can be sent to O’Hara either in letter form at USPS headquarters or by e-mail at [email protected].
