Tag: North America

Catalog reinvention turns new page

Posted by | Dec 12, 2006 | |

There are vested interests on both sides of the debate. Printers, paper manufacturers and the U.S. Postal Service see the paper catalog as being invincible. Internet service providers, search firms and the Internet industry see the catalog as a relic of the pre-online era.

The truth: the debate will be decided by metrics. The problem: we don’t have the metrics.

The coming year will advance those metrics and the logical answer will be that the catalog is losing influence and search is gaining influence.

In fact, while not in 2007, but one year soon, there will be no multichannel marketing, only marketing once again, and it will demand mastery of all channels.

Photography will become much larger-heroic, as it is called. Space, copy and message will be thought of differently; not as cost per square-inch, but conversion cost relative to paid search, keyword expense and pay per click/pay per order.
In 2007, the number of pages will decrease. As catalogs morph to Web drivers, the intent will be to attract buyers rather than display products. If a buyer can be attracted to the in-depth online product experience with 36 pages instead of 120 pages, the “bait-and-hook” catalog will gain in usage.

In 2007, the debate between “black box” membership list co-ops and list-specific co-ops will intensify. Catalogers will demand metrics – from both – that empirically prove the future value of customers.

In all cases, however, youth and profit will come to dominate their operations. And that can only mean huge shifts from tradition to innovation, from passive to aggressive, from print technology to online technology, from response-based to conversion-based.

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Postal reform update: Bill passes House, Senate

Posted by | Dec 11, 2006 | |

The House and then the Senate passed a sweeping postal reform bill that will bring forth significant change in the way that postal rates are set. President Bush is expected to sign the bill into law sometime this coming week.

The bill’s passage culminates 11 years of prior failures to get a postal reform bill through both chambers of Congress.

In brief, what this means to catalogers is as follows:

* Future postal rate hikes will be at or below the inflation rate. A cap for raising rates will be created by linking rate changes to increases in the consumer price index. This will give mailers the chance to know what’d5s coming and be better prepared for rate increases.

* The cumbersome and costly, nine-month-long rate case process will be eliminated, giving the Postal Service the ability to set new rates much quicker, but with oversight from a new government agency, the Postal Regulatory Commission. The commission would be able to alter the cap or the rate system if it sees fit. The USPS will have greater incentive to keep its costs in line.

The new bill contains two key elements that will likely lead to its success:

1. For the first time in U.S. history, the USPS will no longer be required to pay for postal employee pension costs for those employees who previously served in the military. The new bill would eliminate this.

2. The bill repeals the law that forces the USPS to make postal pension payments, which are unwarranted, to an escrow fund, effectively freeing up $78 billion over the next 60 years. This money instead will help keep postage in check, as well as cover retiree healthcare liabilities and postal debts to the U.S. Treasury.

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2007 – The year of UPS

Posted by | Dec 11, 2006 | |

Next year will be a special year for UPS as Big Brown turns 100 on Aug. 28. However, it is the other events that could occur in 2007 that will make it an important year for the company and the transportation industry and thus provide a strong incentive for the UPS management and Teamsters leadership to cooperate in an unprecedented manner in the interest of the customers, investors, employees and management.

Teamster cooperation with early contract execution would allow UPS to avert parcel volume diversion and revenue loss to competition, and disruption to shippers operations. By announcing the agreement in 2007, the union would gain by preventing potential job losses that a drawn-out negotiation might bring. UPS gets the opportunity to ramp up its integrated air and ground domestic parcel service from both operational and marketing perspective for a new competitive advantage for market share gain.

Shareholders would also gain. If UPS, with its strong cash flow, is unable to make a large strategic acquisition in 2007, the board of directors could authorize another share buyback on top of two buyback authorizations over the last three years totaling USD4 billion.

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UPS system delivers savings

Posted by | Dec 11, 2006 | |

UPS has spent USD600 million to automate package sorting and cut time, miles and cost. For drivers, it’s a real help.

When Rick Schetinski starts his United Parcel Service truck each morning, he no longer worries about overlooking packages during a rapid-fire delivery schedule averaging 17 stops per hour.
Thanks to a huge computer-automation project at the Maple Grove distribution center where his truck is loaded, Schetinski receives a list on his handheld computer of everything in his truck and where it’s going.

UPS says the automation system — akin to putting the Dewey Decimal System in a library to replace random book piles — is a key to handling increasing package volume, up 8 percent this year, and coping with the increased volume of holiday deliveries. The Maple Grove distribution center, one of three serving the Twin Cities, expects a peak volume of 86,000 packages a day around Dec. 20, up from 59,000 packages a day the rest of the year.

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USPS and NRLCA reach agreement

Posted by | Dec 11, 2006 | |

The U.S. Postal Service and the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association reached a tentative four-year contract agreement on Dec. 8.

Upon ratification by union members, the agreement will run through Nov. 20, 2010, and affect approximately 66,000 career employees and 52,000 non-career employees who deliver mail to residences and businesses on rural delivery routes.

The USPS and NRLCA formally opened national contract negotiations on Aug. 25. This year was the first time new contracts were negotiated separately at the same time with all four of the postal service’s largest unions.

Earlier this week, the USPS and the American Postal Workers Union also agreed to a tentative four-year contract. Negotiations continue with the National Postal Mail Handlers Union. Negotiations with the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) were not successful and the two parties will now enter the dispute resolution process, which may include binding interest arbitration.

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