Make Your Voice HEARD.(direct mail companies' influence on U.S. Post Office legislative reform)(Brief Article)(Editorial)

Target Marketing, May, 2001 by POLITO, GENE DEL

THERE'S AN OLD Chinese curse that states: "May you live in interesting times." For all of us who use, or support the use of, mail for business communication and commerce, these are most certainly interesting times.

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has fallen into a financial sinkhole. No one knows how deep the hole actually is. Critical mail volumes are declining, postal costs are increasing at a greater-than-inflation pace, and postal officials are telling mailers there may be a need for another round of hefty postal-rate increases. By hefty, they mean that businesses relying on mail will face postal-rate increases in the double-digit range.

For many in the direct mail industry, rate increases of this magnitude spell hard times; for others,...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.