New Year – New Postal Products
The U.S. Postal Service has introduced new flat-rate products for customer convenience.
Extending the popularity of Priority Mail Flat Rate products, a new legal-size flat-rate envelope measuring 15-by-9.5 inches and a padded flat-rate envelope measuring 12.5-by-9.5 inches, are now available. All six types of Priority Mail Flat Rate envelopes are priced at $4.95.
The new Priority Mail flat rate gift card envelope was designed to protect gift cards from damage or loss caused by postal automated mail sorting equipment. With the popularity of gift card giving, the postal service wants to guarantee that your gift card arrives safe and sound.
The new padded flat rate envelope is perfect for those odd shaped items that can not be mailed in a regular letter size envelope.
Priority Mail travels in a separate mail stream from regular First Class mail and normally meets a delivery standard of 2-3 days.
Joining the Express Mail Flat Rate Envelope is a new Legal Flat Rate Envelope and pricing for each remains at $18.30. Express Mail is guaranteed overnight delivery to most destinations.
The popular Hold for Pickup service option-currently available for Express Mail only-is now extended to Priority Mail and First-Class Mail commercial parcels. Packages with the Hold for Pickup endorsement are shipped directly to a Post Office instead of being left at a recipient’s address. Packages are then held at the Post Office until picked up, anytime during office hours, at a time convenient for the recipient.
For more information about purchasing stamps, stamps by mail, postal regulations, a free subscription to USA Philatelic magazine, Post Office events, the location of the nearest postal store or contract unit, or for answers to your specific Postal Service questions, contact USPS at 1-800-275-8777, or visit www.usps.com. To schedule a presentation for your community, club or group on how the Postal Service brings the Post Office to your home or office computer, call 239-573-9638.
Mr. Zip’s Tip: Since USPS introduced the Priority Mail Flat Rate Box in 2004, customers have used more than 375 million boxes. Last month, customers used more than 12.3 million flat-rate boxes-39 percent more than during the same period last year.
A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 150 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no direct support from taxpayers. With 36,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, the Postal Service relies on the sale of postage, products and services to pay for operating expenses. Named the Most Trusted Government Agency five consecutive years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $68 billion and delivers nearly half the world’s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 28th in the 2009 Fortune 500.