Tag: USA

Bilbray joins Postal Service governors

Posted by | Dec 12, 2006 | |

Former Nevada Rep. Jim Bilbray was confirmed by the Senate over the weekend to serve on the board of governors of the U.S. Postal Service until the end of 2015.

Bilbray, 68, was nominated in August by President Bush to complete the remainder of a term that expired Dec. 8, and then serve a new nine-year term.

The Senate confirmed Bilbray’s appointment as Congress closed this year’s session.

The 11-member board of governors usually meets monthly and is comparable to a board of directors for a private corporation.

Board members are paid USD30,000 a year and USD300 a day for meetings.

Bilbray, a Democrat, represented Las Vegas in the House from 1987 through 1994.

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Publishers applaud postal reform

Posted by | Dec 12, 2006 | |

The Magazine Publishers of America and the entire magazine industry are applauding the recent victory of postal reform.

Approved by both Houses of Congress on Dec. 9, the reform included resolutions for two of the magazine industry’s most important issues: Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS)/military pension funding and limiting rate increases to increases in the Consumer Price Index.

On the CSRS issue, the bill eliminates the CSRS escrow fund and returns responsibility for the military pensions of postal employees back to the U.S. Treasury.

The MPA played a key role in the mailing community’s efforts to push for the legislation, and several MPA member companies were instrumental in making the case to Congress.

Congressional leaders of reform include chairman Susan Collins and fellow senators Tom Carper and Joe Lieberman; and chairman Tom Davis and representatives Henry Waxman, John McHugh and Danny Davis from the House.

The New York based-MPA represents more than 240 domestic publishing companies with approximately 1,400 titles, more than 80 international companies and 100-plus associate service providers.

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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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