Tag: North America

Postal Regulatory Commission approves USPS request for sticky notes extension

Posted by | Jun 18, 2007 | |

The Postal Regulatory Commission on June 14 approved the U.S. Postal Service’s request for another one-year extension to test the market desirability of repositionable notes.

The USPS’s repositionable notes -“sticky notes” to some – allow mailers of First-Class Mail, Periodicals and Standard Mail to affix a Post-It-type note to the outside of a mail piece for a fee, in addition to postage for the host piece.

This service was introduced on a provisional basis for a one-year period beginning April 3, 2005, and renewed for an additional year. Fees, which are based on a “value pricing” concept, are one-half cent for First Class and 1.5 cents for Standard Mail and Periodicals.

The USPS filed for the one-year extension request on April 2, the day before the April 3 expiration date. If the USPS Governors approve this recommendation, rates can remain at their current levels through April 3, 2008.

The PRC said its favorable recommendation on the requested change in the RPN expiration date marks its agreement with the USPS that another extension is justified based on limited RPN usage; the minor impact on revenue (USD 1.6 million) and volume; continuity and certainty for mailers; and the need to focus on the transition to a new ratemaking system envisioned by the Postal Accountability and Enforcement Act.

The PRC also noted that the USPS’s filing of the requested extension triggered an automatic stay of the April 3 expiration date, so RPN service has not been interrupted while this case was pending.

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Earnings Preview: FedEx Corp

Posted by | Jun 18, 2007 | |

The company is predicting earnings per share for the fourth quarter between $1.93 and $2.08, and full-year earnings of $6.45 to $6.60 per share. Full-year earnings per share include the impact of costs associated with a pilot labor contract. Excluding those charges, the company expects to see earnings of $6.70 to $6.85 per share.

Analysts expect a quarterly profit of $1.98 per share, according to a poll by Thomson Financial, and full-year earnings per share of $6.76.

In a note to investors, Bear Stearns analyst Edward Wolfe on Monday said he expects FedEx to report fourth-quarter results below Wall Street’s consensus, due to the weak freight economy and increasing fuel costs. He reduced his own earnings per share estimate to $1.85 from $1.98, and expects full-year earnings per share at $6.62.

Wolfe said the company’s international small package business has slowed in the first half of the fiscal year after a slowdown in the trucking industry and reduced rail volumes.

Comparatively, United Parcel Service Inc., the company’s chief competitor, in May reported a 13.5 percent decrease in first-quarter profit. Officials with UPS also cited trouble in their small package business during the year, but the world’s largest shipping carrier said in March it does expect earnings per share growth of 6 percent to 10 percent for 2007.

FedEx shares fell nearly 4 percent during the quarter. The stock hit its 52-week high on Feb. 26, and has slowly declined since to close Monday at $109.92.

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U.S. New homeowners decry cluster boxes

Posted by | Jun 17, 2007 | |

Across the nation, the U.S. Postal Service increasingly is delivering mail to communal cluster boxes as a way to keep pace with booming residential growth while controlling labor costs. The new strategy, aimed at new developments in fast-growing areas such as Clarksburg, Leesburg and Waldorf, saves the postal service time and money.

“Instead of going from door to door, from lawn to lawn, from driveway to driveway, we have a central location,” said Luvenia Hyson, a postal service regional spokeswoman.

But many residents and developers say cluster boxes, traditionally reserved for apartments and townhouses, not single-family homes, are impersonal, inconvenient and downright ugly.

The communal delivery system’s detractors include the National Association of Home Builders, which is lobbying against it. A.J. Holliday, a lawyer for the Washington-based interest group, called the new postal strategy “discrimination” against people buying new homes.

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New FedEx distribution center

Posted by | Jun 16, 2007 | |

The South Brunswick Planning Board approved what will soon become a new Federal Express distribution center last week.

The owner of the property, Matrix Development Group, will now begin construction on a 213,000-square-foot distribution center for the delivery company. Currently, the property is the site of a small office building that will be demolished when the tenant’s lease runs out in 2011, which will prompt Phase II of the development, adding 52,000 additional square feet of space.

An application for a 407,400-square-foot warehouse on the tract was approved in July. The plan proposed last week will shrink the already approved warehouse by almost 200,000 square feet to meet FedEx’s needs.

A principal with Matrix, Kenneth Griffin, said that after approval, the company began seeking tenants for the building and eventually struck a deal with FedEx. The delivery company needed a new distribution facility, which has different design needs than an ordinary warehouse, and plans for a new application were created. Griffin said the location was ideal for the company due to its proximity of Exit 8A on the New Jersey Turnpike.

In the first phase, the facility will employ 344 people, 111 of which will be van drivers. The second phase will bring 183 extra employees. The building will use porous pavement in a little less than 10 percent of its employee parking lot in order to control stormwater.

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Marketers can seal the deal with new high-tech envelopes

Posted by | Jun 15, 2007 | |

According to the Intelligent Document Task Force, created by the Envelope Manufacturers Association Foundation and the U.S. Postal Service, high-speed inkjet technology could allow for more information to be encoded onto mail pieces. This may allow envelopes to one day become an extension of a Web site, communicating information through a bar code, read by a bar code reader for the home. The bar code could direct a consumer to a Web site, making it easier to shop online or return merchandise.

Recently, the USPS expanded its Intelligent Mail bar code system to include flat mail. The system provides the ability to use a single bar code to store more information on individual pieces of mail. This allows for better tracking of mail pieces, which facilitates better sequencing of marketing efforts. For example, if a marketer knows consumers in a particular city or region will receive a direct marketing piece on a certain day, it could buy advertising time in the local television market timed to correspond to the “mail moment” closely.

An exciting area of research and development is intelligent stamps. There are many potential uses for stamps featuring wireless technology. Perhaps one day a stamp will communicate with a cell phone and call up a Web site about a product or service or issue a missing child alert. This technology could also be used on the envelope itself.

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