USPS Talks With Retailers about Its Updated 5 year Plan

In a keynote presentation yesterday at the NEMOA directXchange Fall Conference in Providence, R.I., Nagisa Manabe, chief marketing and sales officer of the U.S. Postal Service, addressed attendees about updates to the USPS’ five-year plan and the urgency of action needed among business mailers.

"The Postmaster General is on the floor as we speak addressing the Senate, pushing for [postal reform] legislation," said Manabe. "We're hoping for a positive outcome very soon — at least by the end of the year."

While Manabe addressed catalogers at NEMOA, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe outlined possible steps of action and stated that without legislative help, "The Postal Service is quickly moving down a path that leads to becoming a massive, long-term burden to the American taxpayer," reports The Guardian.

To cope with the steady decline of mail volume, the USPS has recently updated its five-year plan to help grow revenue and sales. However, many mailers and marketers disagree with some of the possible outlined solutions. Two points causing the most turmoil in the updated plan is the discontinuation of Saturday mail delivery and a possible postage rate increase for catalog mailers.

The USPS, which lost $2 billion in revenue last year and is estimated to lose $6 billion this year, claims ending Saturday delivery would save $2 billion annually. When asked about this during yesterday's session, Manabe replied, "We're still very much hoping for legislative help, but we've found in our research that when working together and working with mailers to mitigate a specific day, amount of mailing a week, and delivering on our promise, the plan would work."

As for a rate increase, it's possible the Postal Service's board of governors could vote as early as next week whether to request a special rate increase.

For more information on the Marketplace Fairness Act, USPS’ five-year plan and how you can get involved, visit http://about.usps.com/strategic-planning/five-year-business-plan-2012-2017.pdf.