US Postal Regulatory Commission stamps out price increase

Knock back for US Postal Service as the Postal Regulatory Commission denies request for an average 5.6 per cent rate increase.

The Commission found that the Postal Service failed to justify rate increases in excess of its statutory CPI price cap.

In a statement, Ruth Goldway, Commission chairman, said that: "The Commission finds that the Postal Service has shown the recent recession to be an exigent circumstance but it has failed both to quantify the impact of the recession on its finances and to show how its rate request relates to the resulting loss of mail volume, therefore, we unanimously deny its exigent rate request.”

The news is likely to be welcomed by those in the print and direct marketing industries. At last month’s PODi conference, Kate Dunn, co-founder and CEO of American strategic marketing company DIG (Digital Innovations Group) warned that postal systems worldwide could be threatening the medium’s future due to postage increases. “The more they raise prices the less volume there is,” she said.

Australia Post issued a postage increase in June this year.