Announcements | LetterStream Blog

USPS First-Class Postage Increasing on Jan. 27th, 2013

usps rate increase

It’s official. The United States Postal Service (USPS) is increasing postage rates on many of their services, including First-Class postage. The changes are set to take effect on January 27, 2013.

The following is a snippet from a USPS press release:

The price for First-Class Mail single-piece letters will increase by just a penny when prices change in Jan. The new 46 cent Forever stamps will allow customers to mail letters to any location in the United States. Forever stamps are always good for mailing a one-ounce letter anytime in the future regardless of price changes.

Highlights of the new single-piece First-Class Mail pricing, effective Jan. 27, 2013 include:

Letters (1oz.) — 1-cent increase to 46 cents

Letters additional ounces — unchanged at 20 cents

Letters to all international destinations (1oz.) — $1.10

Postcards — 1-cent increase to 33 cents

*Source: USPS.com http://about.usps.com/news/national-releases/2012/pr12_114.htm

Visit LetterStream.com today to create your First-Class mailing before the new postage rates go into effect. We are always available to help walk you through the process–it just takes a few minutes!

Warm Wishes and Holiday Hours

Christmas ornaments

Wishing you the very merriest of holiday seasons this year!

From your friends at:

LetterStream Holiday Hours

Visit us on social media!

Toys for Tots – Scottsdale

LetterStream is participating in a local Toys for Tots event this year in North Scottsdale.

The event includes food, live music, Marines and the big-guy wearing a red suit. Yes, Santa will even be there and available for pictures.

pinnacle peak-santa-2

It’s at the Pinnacle Peak General Store and Village, in the courtyard between 11:30 AM and 2:30 PM, Saturday December 15th.

It will be a great outing for family and friends.

Pinnacle Peak General Store and Village

If you join us, be sure and bring a toy or two for the Marines to distribute to children.

*Pictures in this post are from the event last year.

Neither snow nor rain… But Hurricanes…

There’s a reason the postal slogan doesn’t mention hurricanes when talking about the conditions in which they deliver mail.

It turns out that Hurricane Sandy is already effecting postal deliveries all along the eastern shores. As we write this, most retail (post office counter) and BME (business mail entry unit) centers in Long Island, New York and along the New Jersey shore are closed. Many other states are reporting retail operations being affected and/or closed along the coast.

For the latest information about current mail delivery status, visit the United States Postal Service (USPS) Mail Service Updates page.

And, in case you wanted to know, the saying “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds” is not a motto or creed of the post office, but it is an inscription from the James Farley Post Office in New York City.

Copier – Death by Crane (Video)

I just received this video from our friends at ProCopy Office Solutions. It shows a copier that they dropped from a 75 foot high crane in 2011. Pretty awesome!

This year, they are doing it again, and are having a contest for a free copier and a trip to the Bahamas if you can tell them why you have THE worst copier. You can see the details at http://www.procopyoffice.com/.

They are also allowing local businesses to drop their worst copiers for a $25 donation to the local Big Brother Big Sister organization.

Did LetterStream want to drop a copier? Absolutely! But not because we have any bad ones… all of ours make excellent copies and we don’t want to lose any of them. So instead we made a donation as though we were dropping our 8 biggest and best copiers… we can’t wait to see the ProCopy video for this year!

Social Media Promotion Winners!

Thanks to all who participated in our social media promotion for $100 in Starbucks gift cards!

We had four winners, one for each platform that we launched:

Facebook: Justin A.
Twitter: Kayza H.
Google+: Christal W.
LinkedIn: Jessica I.

Thanks again to all who entered! Keep following us for more fun contests. And if you haven’t explored our website, please check us out… especially if you send First-Class or Certified Mail.

LetterStream Does What?

LetterStream is a printing and mailing company. Whether you need to send a single letter or one hundred thousand, LetterStream has a quick and easy solution.

Most of the time our customers create their entire mailing in less than 2 minutes on our website.

So, if you’re not a fan of licking your own envelopes or have had one too many all-night mail stuffing parties, you owe it to yourself to give us a call or explore our website to learn more. I’m sure we can help!

Want to give us a try? Use the following promotion code to get up to $20 off your first order. Hurry, the code is only good for 10 more days! (First order needs to be placed by Oct 31, 2012 or credit disappears)

*Promo code: 10daypromo

Are We Social or What?

We’ve put it off as long as we can, but we can’t seem to go anywhere without someone asking why we don’t have a Facebook page.

Ok, so here goes, once and for all… We now have a Facebook page!

Hopefully it will be instrumental in communicating constructive information to those needing a little help with their printing and mailing projects.

In addition, we’ve added ways for you to connect with us on Google+, Twitter, and LinkedIn, or you can simply follow us on this blog.

Soon you’ll be able to subscribe to our new-and-improved e-newsletter as well.

Now that we’re Social, we’ll keep you posted!

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* Here are the links to our social media sites… we look forward to connecting with you!

We Strive to Over Communicate, You Can Too

Over Communicate

You might wonder about the term “over communicate.” We use the term quite often internally; not because we like senseless chatter, but because we think it is important to keep everyone informed of what is happening around them.

We probably tell some people things they don’t need to know and we probably get a little wordy when we train our staff, but we believe it is better to provide too much information than too little. When everyone is in the loop and gets the big picture, we find that fewer mistakes and/or misunderstandings occur.

One of the ways we attempt to over communicate with our customers is through our email tools. We send emails when someone establishes a new account, when we get a job, when we mail a job, when we hold a job, when we shred a job, if account balances fall below thresholds, if a job is ready for review, and probably a half a dozen other reasons.

Since we believe this is good for us to do internally and externally, we’ve created ways for you to over communicate with your team as well. You can now let others know when you send a mailing, when a proof is ready for their review, and much more.

* Check out all our notification options by selecting “System Notifications” under the “My Account” section of the website.