USPS Offering Program for Catalogers

The U.S. Postal Service is reaching out to e-tailers with a campaign showcasing the power of catalogs with the potential to double online transactions and achieve revenue lift of over 100 percent by creating print extensions of their Internet shopping websites.

“Getting Started in Catalogs” is a USPS promotional campaign featuring a “Catalogs and e-tailing” instructional DVD and a live webinar series. The DVD features testimonials from widely recognized companies such as Dell and Zappo’s, who built their businesses into market leaders within their respective industries by adding catalogs to the marketing mix.

The first of three free webinars takes place July 20, with tutorials on catalog production and the smartest and most cost-efficient ways to produce a catalog. Additional webinars will be held July 28 and Aug. 24. Follow-up support from sales personnel with the Postal Service also is available.

A market study by comScore shows that among visitors to retail websites, twice as many catalog recipients made a purchase as those who did not receive a catalog – more than doubling the online conversion rate. A revenue increase of 163 percent resulted from a comparison of purchases and money spent by catalog recipients versus those who did not receive a catalog in the comScore study, and 28 percent more items were ordered by catalog recipients.

Customers can learn more about growing their businesses through the use of catalogs, order a free DVD, and register to attend the free webinars at: http://www.usps.com/promotions/catalogs.htm.

CORRECTION: Want to Learn More About Periodicals?

Click here to register

Help Is On the Way

The House Committee on Government Reform has introduced the “United States Postal Service’s CSRS Obligation Modification Act of 2010…to amend the provisions of title 5, United States Code, relating to the methodology for calculating the amount of any Postal surplus or supplemental liability under the Civil Service Retirement System.” In introducing the bill, Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA), Chairman of the Subcommittee On Federal Workforce, Postal Service, And The District Of Columbia, said:

“The United States Postal Service’s CSRS Obligation Modification Act of 2010 is intended to remedy a unfair and inequitable methodology for allocating the Postal Service’s share of Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) retirement benefit liabilities for employees that provided service to this country under both the Post Office Department and the independent United States Postal Service.”

According to a January 2010 report by the United States Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General (USPS-OIG), the Postal Service paid more into the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Trust Fund that it would have paid if a more equitable methodology were used to allocate CSRS retirement benefit liabilities between the Federal government and the United States Postal Service.

Source: PostCom

Update from USPS

The state of the Postal Service, its finances and its future, has been the topic of much conversation recently. In some instances, these discussions have not been based in fact. Click here for information prepared by the USPS to help customers and the mailing industry better understand what is really happening.