As we all know, the US Postal Service is on financially shaky ground. But have no fear, a plan is in the works.
USPS is running TV and radio commercials nationwide trying to hook businesses into promoting their services via standard mail. Sound familiar? Okay. So it’s junk mail. But, according to the Wall Street Journal, the USPS is taking a new stab at the dreaded form of snail mail.
“What we want to do is to make standard mail more interesting for customers so we can grow the total volume,” Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said in an interview with the WSJ. “We don’t call it junk mail—it’s a lucrative avenue for anyone who wants to reach customers.”
Turns out that since the 80s, junk mail has grown as a percentage of all mail. All other forms of mail (standard, first-class) has faced a steady decline. However, junk, or advertising, mail revenue still falls far below its competitors. In the 2010 fiscal year, first-class mail accounted for 50 percent, or $34 billion, of the postal service’s total revenue while advertising mail had higher volumes but brought in $17.3 billion, or only 26 percent of total revenue.
I’m interested in how many businesses will catch on to this promotion. At the end of the day, junk mail is junk mail. But if it can save the Postal Service, I’m on board.
No, it’s still junk mail
factoring in the net losses the USPS has had over the last year, how much are we essentially subsidizing junk mail for businesses. A failed model that needs to go.
I am NOT on board. Junk mail should be illegal – it should count as spam.
So if advertising mail isn’t paying its fair share vis-a-vis first class mail (which a lot of individuals and small businesses *depend* on), raise the damned rates until they are paying their way. Poof, more revenue. If they alienate a few of their junk mail clients in the process, fine, the added revenue will more than make up for it. Junk mail doesn’t need to be as cheap as it is.
If the USPS needs junk mail to survive, then it should be killed immediately. I’m tired of this shit.
The USPS provides an essential service. We plugged-in young urbanites forget what life is like for a rural grandmother. Mail still needs to be afforable and reliable. I don’t think it would be outrageous to double the price of stamps immediately, and to continue raising rates annually.
I’d love to see junk mail eliminated, but if companies love it so much – and given caller ID and spam filters and DVR, it’s one of the few reliable ways to get people to see your unsolicited ads – make them pay for it. Double? Triple? Quadruple? Sextuple? Ok, I only said that last one ’cause it has “sex” in it. But seriously, taxpayers should not be footing the bill for corporate ads. Either companies decide it’s worth it and continue sending out junk mail, increasing revenue by 25%, or they get out of the business and suddenly the post office can get by with fewer staff and facilities.
Set a statutory minimum for service, privatize the Postal Service, and set up auctions in underserved areas to guarantee service (the auction would be companies bidding down the required subsidy to find the minimum level).
Or, set up a system of postal banking that would offer basic service (checking, savings) in addition to mail delivery.
You can’t force them to continue to do something unprofitable (deliver mail for $0.50 anywhere in the country) and criticize them for not making a profit.
OK. Like many nonprofits, ours relies on standard mail (here described, inaccurately, as “junk” and “advertising” mail) to distribute a high-quality product (in our case, a 10-minute newsmagazine for transit commuters) to subscribers. This unusual monthly product doesn’t meet the 1940s-style standards that determine whether the Post Office subsidizes it as a “periodical,” so we rely on standard mail as an affordable way to get a universally accessible, high-quality product to happy paying customers.
“Bulk” mail might be a better description.
Also, what’s up with grabbing the WSJ’s homemade graphic as a screenshot and then not even crediting it to the WSJ? A fellow journalist spent some time on that, yo.
-Michael, Portland Afoot
Michael, the last time a story like this came up, my comment mentioned exemptions, namely nonprofits, even though bulk mailing should go up for all the actual ads for businesses.
(It sounds like I’m not the only one thinking about it this way, as theterminizer’s comment confirms)
Fuck that shit. I barely check my mailbox now.. am thinking about just stopping and letting them fill up a big box at the post office until someone decides to toss it. There is nothing I can’t do my web/email now — hell, I would fax before I received mail. I thought all the writers here were greenies who would approve of paperless?