The Postal Rate Commission late last week recommended the U.S. Postal Service’s Board of Governors adopt a flat per-piece fee of $1.75 for each machineable Standard A parcel returned as either unwanted or undeliverable under the USPS’s Bulk Parcel Return Service (BPRS).
Cosmetic, hosiery, book and record club continuity mailers, who are the primary users of the service, rely on it for products being returned to them by customers or for packages that are undeliverable. Catalogers also use the service.
The PRC said the rate change, proposed in late May by the USPS and unanimously endorsed by mailers and their trade organizations, “offers a pragmatic and appropriate solution to the problems that often arise when consumers attempt to return opened, resealed parcels” or parcels which are “undeliverable as addressed.”
Replacing the current charge of postage plus a 30-cent special service’s handling fee with a flat fee “will help close a troubling gap in parcel service, which among other things, has contributed to serious customer relations problems for the USPS and many shippers,” the PRC said, noting that the change will have little or no impact on postal finances.
“It will certainly simplify doing business with the postal service,” said Gene Del Polito, Advertising Mail Marketing Association president.
Postal governors, scheduled to meet next week in Washington, have not indicated when they would act on the PRC’s recommendation.
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