US letter mailers offered second ounce for free
From the start of next month, mailers in the United States will be able to send a two-ounce letter for the price of a one-ounce letter. The new four-month offer from the US Postal Service expands its existing “Reply Rides Free” programme, which had been intended to encourage use of the mail by allowing mailers to include a reply envelope in their First Class Mail correspondence free of charge.
The original program had allowed a 1.2-ounce letter to be sent for the one-ounce rate if a reply card or envelope was included, but after regulators agreed to an expansion today, the program will have its upper weight limit increased to two ounces from September 1.
Reply Rides Free has been in effect for mailers using the Intelligent Mail barcode system since January 2011, with the terms relaxed in May to allow basic service IMb users as well as full-service mailers to benefit.
The offer requires customers to pay the full two-ounce rate for mail when it enters the mailstream, but credit on eligible pieces is returned later, when a mailers’ eligible volumes meet a set threshold.
So far, mailers have found it relatively difficult to keep under the 1.2-ounce weight limit, which the Postal Service has said is a barrier to the programme’s success.
Under the latest revision, the USPS believes the offer will encourage more use of the mail by mailers, forecasting an extra 18m pieces of First Class Mail to bring in $18m extra revenue, although experts have questioned whether there is enough time left in the year-long programme for a significant bump in volumes.
Approving the revision today, the Postal Regulatory Commission said it believed the change would have a positive impact on the programme.
“The change might allow a larger pool of mailers to continue to qualify for the program, thus having a greater positive effect on First-Class Mail volume than the program would have had as previously proposed,” the Commission ruled.
The Reply Rides Free programme is currently scheduled to run until December 31, 2011.
The programme is one of the ways in which USPS is attempting to slow the decline in First Class Mail volumes, as mailers switch to electronic communication channels and cheaper Standard Mail options.
First Class Mail revenues have dropped 7% in the 2011 financial year to date, with the nine months up to the end of June bringing in $24.4bn compared to $26.3bn in the same period in 2010.
