Shipping

Q:"Shipping costs are eating me alive. Customers want free or very low shipping, but they have no idea what that means for small online retail stores. Do you have any strategies to deal with shipping costs and remain competitive?"— Carla Rose, owner, Green and Chic

In late March the U.S. Postal Service officially presented its plan to move to a five-day delivery week to the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC). Although the centerpiece of the USPS’ plan is the elimination of street address delivery on Saturdays, direct marketers should be aware there are many more potential changes that could impact their businesses.

Q: "We've been using Google Ad Manager to serve our internal promotional banners, but unfortunately, the benefits of scheduling, tracking, testing and inventory control can't outweigh the cost of the painfully slow load times it's created. Are there any other solutions out there? Any suggestions or research would be gratefully accepted!"

As the USPS faces significant financial stress and mail volume continues to decline, catalogers must exercise vigilance on postal issues. While some of the changes the USPS is pursuing as a result of its unprecedented economic state are positive, others can do tremendous harm to catalogers and other
direct marketers.

Parcel shipping costs are on the rise, with UPS, FedEx and the USPS all recently increasing general rates. While costs are going up, successful catalog/multichannel companies are finding ways to reduce expenses and improve their bottom lines. What about you? Here are seven keys to getting started.

Identifying and understanding your targeted customers and finding more like them is critical to catalog delivery success. Being “location intelligent” by using location-based information and consumer psychographic data enables catalogers across any industry to more accurately profile their target consumers. By taking into account lifestyle characteristics, purchase behaviors and consumer demographics, catalogers can optimize merchandising strategies and increase sales.

This week in the final part of our two-part series on co-mailing economics, I’ll inform you of the various price estimates you need to research from printers to accurately compare savings between co-mail pools. I also pose a list of questions that catalogers need to ask printers when negotiating co-mail contracts. (For part 1, click here.) Cost Estimates It can be difficult to compare savings between different printer’s co-mail pools. To do this effectively, you need to get the following estimates from printers: * estimated gross postage without any savings; * estimated net postage after the printer’s mail pool and co-mail savings; and *

Catalog printers are running full-page ads touting their co-mail capabilities. Why has co-mailing become such a hot topic in the dialog between catalogers and their printers? Simply put, co-mailing represents the potential for very significant savings in postage costs. The variation in savings between printers, based on the size of co-mail pools, in-line co-mail and off-line co-mail, means choosing the right co-mail partner can be the most significant factor in selecting your printer! The majority of a catalog’s publishing costs are contained in the three P’s: printing, paper and postage. The cost of creative, list rentals and merge/purge is small compared to these three

Attention catalogers who have changed the shape of your books or are considering doing so within the next year: Beware! Changing your catalog shape to qualify for automation letter postage rates may save money in the short term, but it can cost more in the long term. That’s because the U.S. Postal Service is in the process of conducting tests on a variety of design characteristics. Within the next year, its rules will change significantly and may wipe out the slim-jim savings. And it’s not just about the shape. The USPS also is looking into changing rules concerning mailing materials, thickness, tabbing requirements and

Simply put, the U.S. Postal Service can’t afford to have catalog businesses continue to go under. Consider the following: * catalog postage accounted for approximately $3 billion in revenue for the USPS in its 2007 fiscal year, 4 percent of its total revenue; * 21 percent of all priority mail revenue is catalog- or Internet-purchased merchandise; and * catalog transactions generate reply mail between companies and their customers, thus increasing volume for the USPS. With the USPS recognizing this fact, it’s begun to shift its practices toward creating a partnership with catalog mailers, in the hopes of securing profitable futures for both