The USPS has announced a postal rate increase effective April 17th, 2011.
While the overall average increase across all mailing services is capped by law at 1.7% or below the rate of inflation (as measured by the Consumer Price Index), the actual percentage price increase will vary among products and services.
What is puzzling about the USPS postal rate increase is that the agency is not increasing the cost of an individual stamp ($0.44), but is increasing the automated postage rates incurred by business an average of 1.7%. We estimate this will equate to an increase of approximately $0.01 per first class letter – we will know more in the coming weeks. The last increase in 2009 was $0.01 per piece.
While postal rate increases are never good news, please be assured of PCI Group’s continued commitment to minimizing your postage expense through the use of address hygiene services, the Intelligent Mail Barcode, Electronic ACS services and our advanced, proprietary technologies. In addition, we now offer address hygiene services from Lexus Nexus and ID Data.
As always, we are prepared to answer any questions you may have regarding this latest news and our address hygiene services as they apply to your mailings.
