The U.S. Postal Service is cutting some of the rates for its International Priority Airmail (IPA) service, effective this weekend.
“Working with our foreign partners, we have lowered our costs so we can pass the savings on to our customers,” James Grubiak, vice president, USPS International Business Unit, said in a statement announcing the new IPA rate schedule.
Those costs, the fees charged by foreign postal services to handle international mail, were reduced last year through new contracts.
Under the new schedule, which goes into effect on Sunday, high-volume mailers using the service will see a drop in the per-pound rate for drop shipped, sacked mail sorted by country, except Canada, but no change in the per-piece charge.
Besides seeing the rates cut, mailers will be able to increase the weight of their sacked mail to 11 pounds from 10 pounds.
For example, it will cost 25 cents per piece and $5 per pound instead of $1.15 for a mailer to send letters, letter packages, postcards, small packets, regular printed matter and periodicals, such as catalogs and magazines to Europe. A mailer sending the same sacked mail to Asia will save $2 a pound, paying $6.50 instead of $8.50 per pound and 10 cents for each piece in the sack.
Mailers spending $2 million annually on postage will qualify for a 5% discount for drop shipping their mail at one of four designated drop ship centers. But a mailer who spends more than $10 million a year will save 10% and a mailer spending more than $15 million a year on postage will save 15%.
Mailers failing to sort sacked IPA mail by country will still pay 25 cents for each piece in the sack, but only $7 a pound instead of $8.55.
The USPS is requiring that mail destined for the United Kingdom be marked for specific cities, such as London, Glasgow and Belfast, and mail for Mexico be labeled by state, i.e., Sonora, Chihuahua and Distrito Federal for Mexico City.
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