USPS Clarifies Mobile Barcode for Co-Mail

Today Susan LaChance, USPS Vice President of Consumer and Industry Affairs, held an impromptu webinar with leadership of the Mailers Technical Advisory Committee (MATC) and other industry mailing executives to clarify some of the eligibility requirements for the upcoming Mobile Barcode promotion.

The most contentious item discussed on the call was the use of the Mobile Barcode in a commingled or co-mail pool. Previous communications from the Postal Service mislead many mailers to think all pieces within a co-mail pool had to have the Mobile Barcode to qualify for the discount.

According to information scheduled to be released early next week, the USPS will clarify the issue. The information will announce that any mail claiming the Mobile Barcode Promotion discount must be on a separate postage statement(s) from the mail not claiming the mobile barcode discount.

All mailings submitted in the Brown Printing co-mail environment are issued their own postage statements. Therefore, if a co-mail pool consists of Mobile Barcode and Non-Mobile Barcode participants, we will generate separate postage statements with or without the promotion discount. The only exception is Mixed-Class pools. Mobile Barcode mailings claiming the discount must be submitted electronically using Mail.dat. Due to PostalOne system limitations, Mixed-Class co-mail pools cannot be submitted electronically. Brown Printing will limit the number of Mixed-Class pools during this promotion.

Once again, here are the basic requirements:

• All mailpieces in the mailing must include a mobile two-dimensional barcode on the face of the mailpiece or within the mailpiece.
• The mobile barcode must be used for marketing purposes and must be relevant to the contents of the mailpiece. The objective of the two-dimensional mobile barcode on eligible mail pieces must be to initiate interaction with consumers via mobile smartphones to market, promote, or educate

Additionally, the FAQs document about the USPS Mobile Barcode Promotion will been updated to reflect that non-profit Standard Mail will be eligible to take advantage of the 3% mobile barcode discount as long as all other requirements of the program are met.

The most updated information about the Mobile Barcode promotion can be found on the U.S. Postal Service RIBBS website [Link].

DMM Revision: Revocation of Permit Imprints

Effective June 6, 2011, the Postal Service will revise Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM) 604.5.2.2 to specify that one of the conditions that a permit imprint may be revoked, among others, is for failure to mail using the permit or pay the fees for a 2-year consecutive period.

Source: Postal Bulletin