USPS Postage Rate Increase on January 26th

USPS 2014 stamp 49 cents

As a reminder, the United States Postal Service (USPS) will be increasing the price of a first-class stamp from $.46 each to $.49 each on January 26th, 2014. If you are planning on getting a mailing out the door this month, you can save money by sending it a few days early.

LetterStream will be raising its prices on all first-class mail products by 3 cents to cover the cost of the USPS price increase. Our new prices will take effect at 5:00 pm on January 24th, as jobs received over the weekend will be mailed on Mon. Jan. 27th at the new postage rate.

As is our tradition, LetterStream has no plans to increase prices beyond the USPS increase. Keep in mind that the USPS has raised prices on postcards, flats, certified mail and other products as well. These increases will be reflected where appropriate in LetterStream prices. We look out for our customers as best we can!

Churches And Year-End Giving Statements

Girls helping mail year-end statements

Wow, January is a tough month on volunteers in churches and other non-profit organizations that need to send out year-end charitable giving statements (or annual contribution statements).

This is the time of year you see church secretaries and bookkeepers hauling boxes of paper and envelopes to their cars so they can get their family involved in folding, stuffing, addressing, sealing and mailing the giving statements. This process can take its toll on church staff as they are hesitant to get other church members and “givers” involved due to the sensitivity of this information.

If your organization is looking for an easier and faster method, consider using LetterStream.com to accomplish this mailing. Some local churches actually bring their pre-printed documents directly to us for folding, inserting and mailing. However, most of our non-profit clients simply upload their contribution statements to our secure website for us to print and mail for them.

One thing to remember is that charities are not allowed to use their non-profit permit, standard or bulk postage for these statements. Instead, the United States Postal Service (USPS) requires that statements be sent via First-Class Mail.

Keep in mind that First-Class postage rates are going up by 3 cents on January 26th, 2014. So however you choose to get your charitable giving statements out, act quickly.

If you’d like to give LetterStream a try, choose the “Pre-Addressed PDF (1stclass)” job type from our website and upload some sample statements, or simply give us a call and mention this blog post for personalized assistance. We think you’ll discover a welcome relief to your year-end giving statement mailing.

Toys for Tots 2013 Update

Toys for Tots toy drive

Santa at Toys for Tots event

Toys for Tots event at DC Ranch in Scottsdale was a huge success! It was a warm, sunny day, and a spirit of giving must have been in the air… the Marines collected more than 20 jumbo boxes of toys; enough to fill an entire U-Haul truck!

The event was complete with Christmas carolers, great food, photo ops with Santa, an antique toy auction, plenty of hot chocolate, and lots of smiles all around.

Just like last year, I was blown away by the generosity of our team. This year LetterStream giving was up by 50%! Way to go guys!

As the Marines filled the U-Haul truck with toys, I couldn’t help but think of the joy it would bring to kids in need this holiday season.

A special thanks to Grimaldi’s and American Family Insurance who sponsored the event. And thanks to all who came out and participated.

We hope to see an even bigger crowd next year!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Welcome 2014! Years seem to feel more like months these days. I’m not sure if that’s because we are having too much fun and making time fly, or if we are just distracted by the opportunities to assist our customers. Either way, a new year is upon us.

We want to say thank you to all our customers, vendors, employees, friends and families who all have been so supportive of the products and services that we offer. We are grateful… Thank You!

In response, and as our New Year’s resolution, we will continue to innovate in the mailing industry in order to deliver hi-tech mailing tools to assist you with your mailings. We will also continue to offer a degree of speed and precision that few in the mailing world can provide, and we will continue to offer stellar customer service, the kind that you can only find by turning back time.

Please continue to communicate with us and give us your feedback so that we can partner with you in helping you accomplish your goals this year as well.

Thank you! …and Happy New Year!

2014 Postage Rate Increase – Official Rates Confirmed

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It’s often hard to read between the lines and figure out if postage rates have been officially approved or simply proposed by the United States Postal Service (USPS).

For instance, the September 2013 USPS rate increase announcement was actually just a proposal to increase postage prices. In order for new postage rates to be known for certain, they needed to be approved by the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC).

“The Commission is an independent agency that has exercised regulatory oversight over the Postal Service since its creation by the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970. The Commission is composed of five Commissioners, each of whom is appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, for a term of six years.” – https://www.prc.gov/

The PRC made the official announcement 3 days ago on December 24, 2013 that the USPS proposed postage rates are approved and will go into effect on January 26, 2014. Click to read the press release.

The price of a first-class stamp is increasing from $.46 to $.49 cents; an increase of $.03 per postage stamp.

Common postage prices to be aware of include:

  • Letters (1 oz.) — 3-cent increase to 49 cents
  • Letters additional ounces — 1-cent increase to 21 cents
  • Letters to all international destinations (1 oz.) — $1.15
  • Postcards — 1-cent increase to 34 cents

These prices were all outlined in the USPS price change announcement (proposal) on September 25, 2013. You can read the entire announcement on the United States Postal Services website.

Certified Mail service by the postal service is also seeing price increases. Certified Mail base fees will be $3.30. Certified Mail Green Card fees (PS Form 3811) will increase to $2.70 while Electronic Return Receipt (ERR) fees will increase to $1.35. For simpler math, a certified letter weighing less than an ounce with green card receipt will cost $6.49 each at the Post Office ($.49 first-class postage + $3.30 certified mail fee + $2.70 certified mail return card).

Toys for Tots 2013 Event – Join Us on Dec. 21st!

It’s time to get into the Christmas spirit and round up toys for kids who might not have Christmas presents this year without a little help from us.

LetterStream is again participating with American Family Insurance agents Nanette D. Cure and Nanette Corso for their 7th Annual Christmas in the Park Fund Raiser and Toy Drive.

This year’s event continues to support the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation and promises to be bigger and better than ever, with a visit from Santa, Marines, live entertainment, an antique toy auction and more.

The event has been moved from the Pinnacle Peak General Store to Grimaldi’s in DC Ranch. This is a great backdrop for family photos, and of course pictures with Santa!

What:      Toy Drive, Santa, Toy Auction, Great Food

When:     December 21, 2013: 3:30 pm – 6:00 pm

Where:    DC Ranch, Scottsdale, (20715 North Pima Road)

Please bring unwrapped toys for donation, or drop them off anytime at the LetterStream corporate office.

We look forward to seeing you at the event!

"Tech Support": Another Funny Video

This Domtar video is so true.

It really doesn’t have anything to do with mail… but it does leave us asking the question; are we using sustainability as the rationale to do irrational things?

Tell me this hasn’t happened to you.

If you’re interested in real paper mail, contact LetterStream for solutions in Certified Mail, First-Class, and non-profit mail.

Last Minute Christmas Postcards

LetterStream Christmas postcard

Running a little behind this Holiday? Aren’t we all. But here’s a way to get your Christmas greetings out the door quickly.

Granted, we are known for our industrial grade automated mailing solutions, but one of our products makes sending fun, full-color postcards a breeze.

All you need is a picture and the addresses of those you want to send the postcard to. Wow, this sure is going to be a short blog post.

It’s funny because you could probably create your Christmas postcards in less time than it took me to write this short little post.

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Want more info? Our postcards are printed in full-color, full-bleed (printing all the way to the edge of the postcard/no white margins). The postcard is 5 1/2″ x 8 5/8″ printed on heavy card stock paper.

Nearly any size image will work as our cropping tool will help you fit the photo to our postcard. If the image is too small, we will give you a warning, but most pictures from today’s modern smartphones should work just fine.

There’s room for another image on the address side of the postcard as well, or you could leave a white space if you aren’t feeling creative or are pressed for time. On the other hand, you can type out some well wishes and save them as a .jpg file. You might even want to put a colorful, festive background behind your holiday greeting to add more color to your message.

I recommend making the address-side image roughly square as that is the area available to you. Again, our cropping tool will help you crop the image so that it fits the message area.

I guess I should talk briefly about addressing your postcards. You can enter the addresses one at a time into your private online address book (which will make sending next year’s greetings even faster), or you could upload a .csv file to get all your addresses loaded in a snap.

Once your job is complete, we take your postcards to the Post Office and mail them via USPS First-Class mail. There’s nothing else you need to do!

Ok, we’ve taken enough of your precious holiday time. Get started, find that great holiday photo and your mailing list, and get those postcards in the mail.

***For the month of December, all postcards created on our website before noon Arizona time (MST) will mail that same day.

Innovations In Printing And Mailing

popular_science_cover

I was flying out of town the other day and picked up a Popular Science magazine to read on the flight. I was happy to see the title was “100 Best Innovations of the Year” and wondered if any of our mailing innovations had made the list. There are a few different mailing innovations that we rolled out this year and I thought I might find one or two discussed in the magazine.

For instance, we have our innovative Return Mail Processing service where we can process our clients’ return mail. This is a good way to keep undeliverable mail from being returned to our customers. Instead, we get it. Then we flag all the addresses in our customer’s account that have been returned, showing the return date and the return reason from the USPS yellow sticker. In addition, reports can be run by user, date range, mail type and many other filters for the letters that were returned.

Another innovation is our USPS Registered Mail solution, which allows users to create and send Registered Mail on our website. If you send Registered Mail, you know that it is one of the most time-consuming and confusing types of mail that you could possibly send. True to LetterStream’s form, we make the process so easy you can create the registered letter–or hundreds of them–in around 2 minutes on our website. We keep track of the USPS tracking information and the signature cards in an orderly fashion on our website.

Some may say that our online Certified Mail process is the most innovative Certified Mail solution they’ve ever seen. We’d like to agree… but we’ve been processing Certified Mail this way for nearly 10 years, so it might not be an innovation of this year.

We’ll, I’ve skimmed the 100 Best Innovations article, and unfortunately I could not find the name LetterStream. But that’s ok, our customers repeatedly give us the honor of being great innovators in the mailing business, and they are the ones we want to please.

If you want to learn more about our mail innovations, check out our website, explore our blog or pick up the phone and call us.

What Is Needed To Send USPS Certified Mail Online?

Certified Mail Letters and Envelopes

Well, it’s pretty simple actually. You need an address and a document, oh, and a company that offers the ability to create certified mail on their website.

If you want to use LetterStream.com or our sister site OnlineCertifiedMail.com to send your certified letter, you simply need the address you want to send the letter to and your document saved as a PDF file. Yes, it seems like it should be more complicated than that, but most of our clients can create and send their Certified Mail in two minutes or less.

There’s nothing more you need to do. However, if you want to track your letter through the USPS process or retrieve the signature of the person who signed for your certified letter, the process is as simple as logging into the website and clicking on the mailing to see all the details.

Or, consider the alternative: You could write your letter, print it from your laser printer, hunt for an envelope, fold the document (maybe twice to get it to fit in the envelope), hand address the envelope, seal it, drive to the post office, wait in line, fill out the green card while waiting in line, try to figure out how the certified mail barcode wraps over the top of the envelope, pay for the piece, get a receipt with a 20-digit tracking number that you will need to enter any time you want to track the status of the piece, and get the green card back. Then, not knowing where you should keep the green card, you shove it in a desk drawer and ultimately lose it, and just when you want to find out what happened to the letter… the post office tells you they have removed the information from their online system and you’ll have to request that it be emailed to you.

Hmmm… I feel an AT&T commercial coming on. “It’s not complicated. Simple is better.“