The USPS’s announcement of new, higher postage rates for catalogers and all other mail is a mistake and should be rolled back. The attempt to boost revenue by raising rates may very well have the exact opposite effect: catalogers will drastically scale back on the number of books they put into the mail, suppressing USPS revenues in the process.
As one might expect, catalogers are voicing their opposition to the upcoming postal increase. For example, a high-end men’s apparel cataloger said it knew it would have to absorb the increase in both postage and paper, and would probably mail according to its original plan for the holiday season. Sticking to the plan makes sense because the easing of COVID has resulted in an uptick in response rates, and that should somewhat offset the increased costs. However, earlier plans to increase circulation (which means more revenue for the USPS) were quashed by the postage and paper cost increases