Brown Printing Offers Mobile Barcode Generator

To help you take advantage of the U.S. Postal Service Mobile Barcode (Quick Response) summer discount promotion, Brown Printing Company is offering the opportunity to create barcodes on their website, free of charge. The service is powered by B.Mobile, a new business unit of Brown. Click here for complete details. In a related article, PostCom, a national association of businesses and organizations supporting the use of mail, has written the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) in support of the promotion. PostCom is requesting the PRC expedite the approval process [Link].

2,000 Postal Employees Take Buyout

More than 2,000 U.S. Postal Service administrators have signed up for an early-out deal that will give them $20,000 in return for leaving their financially struggling employer by the end of next month. Announced last month as part of a broader streamlining, the offer is the first for USPS managers since 1992, Chief Human Resources Officer Tony Vegliante said in an interview. Two thousand three employees applied by the Monday deadline, spokesman Mark Saunders said. The $20,000 incentive will be paid out in equal installments this November and in November 2012. Their departures will account for about two-thirds of the 3,155 administrative slots that the Postal Service is cutting under the reorganization. With a reduction-in-force now under way, Vegliante said some employees could be laid off, but that won't be known until the process ends in early September. Of the authorized administrative reductions, 1,179 will come from headquarters and headquarters field units, 345 from area administrative offices and 1,631 from district administrative offices.

Source: Federal Times

USPS Relaxes Regulation on Email Requests

The U.S. Postal Service has revised Customer Support Ruling PS-054 on Requester Records. It now includes a new policy statement concerning "email requests" to a requester Periodicals publication.

Source: DMM Advisory

Wal-Mart Testing Home-Delivery Option

Wal-Mart Stores is testing a home-delivery system in California to allow customers to buy food, medicine and other products online, similar to Amazon.com and other retailers, according to the Wall Street Journal. The company launched its “Walmart To Go” service in San Jose, CA, which allows household goods online and delivery for fees starting at about $5, the paper reported. Wal-Mart said the San Jose launch is a limited test only and did not provide details on other possible test markets, though its website has a section where customers can learn about the service and see if it is available in their area. Editor’s note: Could we see Wal-Mart trucks delivering mail someday?

Source: Transport Topics

Gain in Overnight Deliveries

Gains in overnight shipments at United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) and FedEx Corp. (FDX), the two largest package-delivery companies, show consumers and businesses are willing to pay for faster deliveries as the economy expands. Average daily volume for UPS’s next-day air packages “grew at a mid-single digit rate,” overshadowing a drop in ground delivery for the quarter ended March 31 from a year earlier, data from the Atlanta-based company. Such growth in premium overnight air packages is a sign of economic confidence, according to Chief Financial Officer Kurt Kuehn. UPS’s results echoed data from FedEx issued almost six weeks ago that showed average daily volume for U.S. overnight deliveries at the Memphis-based carrier rose 2.4 percent to 1.22 million boxes in the quarter ended Feb. 28 from a year earlier.

Source: Bloomberg