USA: Magazines braced for higher postage
On Saturday, the U.S. Postal Service is set to raise rates an average 12 percent for mailing magazines across the country — a move many feel favors the larger magazines at the expense of smaller ones.
The postal service contends the new standards will boost efficiency and offer users more choices by encouraging publishers to co-mail and co-palletize, which is combining multiple magazines into a single mailing.
The new rate system also includes discounts for mailers who print labels that a computer can read, as well as incentives for publishers who agree to ship their titles along with other magazines and for dropping their magazines closer to their final destinations, John Waller, director of the Postal Regulatory Commission office of Rates, Analysis and Planning, said yesterday.
Magazine publishers both locally and nationally are bracing for the new postal rate restructuring.
While the average increase is about 12 percent, the postal service said, publishers claim that postal rates for smaller publications could increase by as much as 30 percent while the increases for larger-circulation magazines could be less than 10 percent because they take advantage of the discount incentives.
