18 November 2010 Postal Bulletin Summary
There are 4 DMM revisions in today’s Postal Bulletin, although two of them (“New Shipper Paid Forwarding Ancillary Service Endorsement Option” and “Automation Letters – Perforated Pocket Attachments”) shouldn’t affect Presort. Certainly they may be items that interest you if you’re a mailer, they just don’t seem to affect how the Presort is done.
The other two items in today’s Bulletin, while potentially affecting Presort results, shouldn’t have much effect. The ZIP code for the Washington DC NDC is changing, from 20499 to 20799, and this change must be reflected in mail preparation by 19 Feb 2011. Of course, the changes MAY be used sooner than that, but they don’t NEED to be. If you have issues with acceptance before Feb 19 because of the ZIP for Washington, this PB is your reference. This change should be included in the directories for December, which should allow you to switch over in time.
The other item is a clarification for reduced overflow trays, although I believe the way it is described is what PAVE has already tested for some time. Remember that reduced overflow trays are ones created in lieu of less-than-full overflow trays, where mail from one sort level may be included in a tray at the next sort level while retaining the lower price it would have received. I’ll just cite the example in 235.6.6 in the PB – if you have an extra 30 pieces for ZIP 20260 that won’t fit in the 5DG tray but you have a 3DG tray for 202, you may put those 30 pieces in the front (or back) of that 202 tray and claim 5DG price. The clarification is that the 202 tray must already have 150 pieces in it before you can drop the 30 pieces into it.
The interesting piece to me, and probably the need for the clarification, was that the original roll-out of this option was sold to developers as a way for additional mail to qualify at finer Presort levels. In the example above, there would have only needed to be 120 pieces for 3DG 202 to be able to drop the 30 pieces, since that would make a 150 piece tray. Alas, the language was not unquestionably clear on this point, and when the original authors moved on and others were asked to interpret the rule…well, you see the result in this published clarification.
About upcoming items, we think tomorrow is the cutoff day for 45 days before the implementation date of Jan 2 for new postage statements, and there are still some items that the USPS has said we should expect to see implemented then that have not yet been formally announced. Will they or won’t they? Only the USPS knows for sure, I guess.
Now, I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving! And check back in 2 weeks to see if we learned anything more about the Jan 2 competitive pricing updates.