Cut the Fat on Your Packaging to Help Keep Postal Rates Low

Those hardest hit by the postal charge per unit changes, which took consequence in May 2007, include retail merchants who direct their merchandises and catalogues via mail. By learning to maintain packaging little and flexible, however, retail merchants can endure the higher U.S. mail costs.

What's Changed and Why

The new rates do form and dimension a bigger portion of the criteria, explained Flatness Steichmann, squad leader for the U.S. Postal Service's concern service web in Northern Illinois.

"We used to terms most points based on weight alone," said Steichmann, "but our costs are related to three-dimensional feet."

Another cardinal factor – and 1 that volition use to a big per centum of retail merchants selling CDs or DVDs – is the rigidness of an item. Mailers such as as posterboard envelopes or bubble-lined kraft envelopes were previously considered big envelopes or "flats." Under the new standards, however, when these bundles are filled with media, they are too stiff to be considered an envelope.

"The principle behind this is we have got two types of level processing machines," explained Steichmann. "The aged machines processed mail in a additive manner so flexibleness really wasn't a factor. But we're phasing those machines out in favour of a machine that plant faster, but have a batch of curved shapes in it. If a piece is not flexible, it jams [the new machines]."

Keeping Your Prices Down

If you are looking to maintain costs down, there are three elements you must maintain in head when choosing your mail packages: shape, weight and flexibility.

"Remember that terms is now based on shape," said Steichmann. "So letters are the least expensive to send, flats are next, non-machinable flats are adjacent and packages are last."

Another option available to cadmium and DVD retail merchants is sending their merchandises out via "media rate." Media charge per unit is a subcategory of packages and, in many cases, is more than low-cost than sending a bundle as a parcel. If you are sending points more than than ¾-inch thick and weigh about 6 troy ounces or more, you should check up on it out. These less rates are available to companies and people who are mailing points such as as: sound and picture recordings, CDs, DVDs and more.