Merchants Need to Keep Calm and Carry On
It’s always something. Just when direct-to-customer merchants think they have a handle on their profit margins, something comes along to throw it into frenzy.
It’s always something. Just when direct-to-customer merchants think they have a handle on their profit margins, something comes along to throw it into frenzy.
Catalog mailers may see, on average, a 5.9% postal rate increase based on price changes the U.S. Postal Service has proposed to the Postal Regulatory Commission, according to a statement emailed to Multichannel Merchant by the American Catalog Mailers Association.
The Board of Governors of the USPS may vote this month on an exigent postage increase. See what the economic case for catalog mail needs to include.
The True Simplification of Taxation, also known as TruST, is asking millions of catalog shoppers to let the House Judiciary Committee know how the passing of the Marketplace Fairness Act could affect them as shoppers.
Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe told a U.S. Senate committee that the U.S. Postal Service is in the midst of a financial disaster and that its cash liquidity remains dangerously low.
The National Retail Federation has released a short video featuring small retailers from across the country expressing the online disparity between Main Street retailers and internet retailers, along with the “urgent” need for Congress to address the Marketplace Fairness Act.
Executives from 11 companies share their reasons why the Marketplace Fairness Act would be a burden to their companies – and to their customers.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wants the USPS to eliminate to-the-door mail delivery and replace it with curbside and cluster box delivery. That may have an effect on how merchants mail catalogs to prospects and customers alike.
Organizations that oppose the Marketplace Fairness Act and those who support it have been extremely vocal about their opinions on the subject. Two of the leaders in the industry, eBay and Amazon, fall on opposite sides of the argument.
The United States Postal Service expects to see real time tracking in all 67 of its districts by the end of 2013. The move was generated to give “piece of mind” to both the customer and the shipper with 15-minute real time package tracking.