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Priority Mail

Today, prices for large, lightweight items do not adequately reflect our transportation costs — and heavier weight items are over priced. Our proposal corrects this situation — and continues to improve the convenience of using Priority Mail®.

One of the major initiatives of the pricing proposal includes the introduction of "dimensional-weight" (or dim weight) pricing. Dim weight pricing is based on the cubic size or dimension of the mailpiece rather than the weight. Today, the price of the piece is based almost solely on weight. But if a light-weight piece is large in size, and takes up a lot of space in transportation, it is possible that the price of mailing does not cover our handling costs. Dim-weighting is a mechanism that converts the cubic size of the piece into a weight. If a large box is very light, it will be charged as a higher-weight piece, based on the International Air Transport Association (IATA) standard. This pricing only affects pieces larger than 1 cubic foot, and destinating to zones 5-8, since it is air transportation costs that are particularly sensitive to size, rather than weight. This costing and pricing approach also leads to lower proposed prices for some heavier-weight parcels.

dimensional weighting test
Priority Mail parcels whose length, width, and height, multiplied together, are greater than one cubic foot. Example: Parcel weighing 10 pounds measures 14 inches long, 14 inches wide, and 12 inches high. Dim weight = (14 x 14 x 12) / 194 = 2,352 / 194 = 12.12. Postage would be the appropriate 13-pound rate.

The "balloon" (minimum) charge would remain for zones 1-4, but would no longer apply to zones 5-8. The price for these large pieces would be the 20-pound price, instead of today’s 15-pound price. Our proposal also separates zone 3 prices from zone 1 and 2 prices. This change would also align the Priority Mail zones with the zones used for all other classes of mail, and allow for lower price increases for parcels traveling shorter distances.

balloon rate
A minimum rate charged for Priority Mail and Parcel Post items that measure between 84 and 108 inches in combined length and girth, and (currently) weigh less than 15 pounds, and proposed for parcels weighing less than 20 pounds.

We propose to make the Priority Mail Flat-Rate Box pricing experiment a permanent product. The new price for the flat-rate box regardless of weight, contents, or distance traveled, would be $8.80. The price for our Priority Mail Flat-Rate Envelope would continue to be the same as the (unzoned) 1-pound rate, $4.65. Also, we are retaining "no fee" electronic Delivery Confirmation™ service.

Express Mail

Express Mail® pieces are mostly lightweight documents that range from 1/2 pound to 2 pounds. To keep Express Mail a viable option for document mailers, we are proposing a new 1-pound rate to fill a gap between 1/2 pound and 2 pounds. Currently, any item over a half pound is charged a 2-pound price. Adding the new 1-pound price makes Express Mail a better value for mailers of lightweight documents. The rate for the Express Mail Flat-Rate envelope will continue to be equal to the 1/2-pound rate, $16.25.

Standard Mail

In Standard Mail®, our letter automation pricing has been very successful. Almost all Standard Mail letters fit nicely with our automation program. Our proposed prices will continue to encourage mailers to prepare their mailings to be compatible with our operations and to drop ship their mailings closer to the destination.

Our proposal would discontinue destination delivery unit (DDU) rates for Enhanced Carrier Route (ECR) letters. This is consistent with our efforts to promote delivery point sequencing of letters, which usually occurs at the mail processing plant. Entry at the DDU frequently results in letters being sent to the plant for processing, and then transporting them back to the delivery unit. Likewise, we also propose to eliminate the automation basic carrier route rate for letters. We retain DDU-entry rates for flats and parcels since that is the best entry location for those shapes.

automation-compatible mail
Mail that can be processed and scanned by automated mail processing equipment such as multi-line optical character readers and barcode sorters.

As in First-Class Mail, the proposed Standard Mail pricing has greater recognition of shape, and a reduced reliance on weight. In general, Standard Mail pieces that are not compatible with our automated processing, or are parcel-shaped, would be priced higher.

The biggest change in Standard Mail is for parcels. Today, the pricing for parcels is simple — you just add 24.2 cents to the prices for flats. But that surcharge doesn't allow us to give larger incentives for presorting and drop shipping parcels. So we've developed separate pricing for parcels, with more presort tiers, and a new DDU drop ship option. And we have different preparation guidelines for machinable and nonmachinable (irregular) parcels — all to help us process these pieces more efficiently, and, in turn, keep prices lower.

drop shipment
The movement of a mailer's product on private (nonpostal) transportation from the point of production to a postal facility (e.g., DBMC, DADC, DSCF, DDU) located closer to the destination.

Currently, our automation flat prices are offered to pieces that are not totally compatible with our flats automation. These pieces are handled more like parcels, which is more costly. In order to match the prices more closely with costs, we are changing the definition of an automation flat. In short, if a piece is too thick, or too rigid to run on our flat automation, it will not qualify, and will be categorized as "Not Flat-machinable." This new category will have higher prices than flats, but lower prices than other parcels.

To encourage greater efficiency, we propose separate prices for machinable letters and nonmachinable letters. The current rate and mail preparation structure for automation letters does not change. "Machinable" letters are not barcoded by the mailer, but can be processed and barcoded on our automation at the origin facility. As with First-Class Mail, presorting by the mailer to 3-digit or finer is unnecessary so we do not include mail preparation or presort discounts finer than the AADC level. This simplified mail preparation should also reduce the mailer's workshare costs.