Parcel - April 2008 - (Page 40)

THE MOVE UPDATE CHANGES It pays to prepare By Lloyd Moss The rules for Move Update are changing effective November 23, 2008, and the USPS is re-engaging its efforts to enforce Move Update Compliance. In the past, the USPS’s efforts to evaluate a mailer’s compliance with the Move Update requirement were manually performed. However, this is soon to change. The timing of the rule changes coincides with the postage rate increases effective May 12, 2008. Mailers will be using newly designed postage statements, and many of these new statements include a “Move Update Method” area, where the mailer must check off how they are complying with the Move Update requirement. Today, this requirement only applies to First-Class Mail and requires that the Move Update must be performed within the 185 days prior to submission of the mail to the USPS. However, effective November 23, Standard Class mailers of Letters, Flats and Parcels will also have to check one of those check boxes, and the frequency has been increased to 95 days prior to submission to the USPS. Checking the box on the postage statement certiﬁes that the information on the form is accurate and subject to the language of the statement’s certiﬁcation section. While the Move Update requirement has existed for First Class Mail since July 1, 1997, it has been incorrectly interpreted and misunderstood by many mailers. Details on the current requirement can be found on Postal Explorer (http://pe.usps.com) in DMM section 233.3.5. Also, publication 363 provides even more detailed information (http://www.usps.com/cpim/ftp/pubs/pub363.pdf). Historically, the process of determining whether mailers were complying with the Move Update requirement was difﬁcult. However, the USPS recently established processes to measure compliance for whatever Move Update method a mailer is employing. This includes an upgrade to their Merlin systems to verify whether the mail appears to be in compliance with Move Update requirements. As the mailing industry moves to the Intelligent Mail Barcode, it will allow the USPS to determine whether mailers are complying with the Move Update requirement even after the mailing has been made. That data will likely be used to trigger discussion with the mailer on their Move Update compliance procedures and whether improvements are required. 40 Spring 2008 Under the current Move Update requirement for First-Class presort and automation discounts, “Each address and associated occupant name used on the mail pieces in a mailing must be updated within 185 days before the mailing date, with one of the USPS-approved methods.” Before the Mailing: For a marketing mailing from a rented mailing list, this is easy to understand. The list is acquired and run through a pre-mailing solution like NCOALink, which provides a change of the addresses of people who moved so mailing is printed with the new address. Transactional mailers that prepare transactional mail, such as invoices and statements, may have additional challenges. Large corporate mailing operations often have no control over the address data as it’s often contained in print image ﬁles generated by invoicing programs from other departments. A post-composition program can be used to get the name and addresses from the print image ﬁles, run CASS and NCOALink and return the corrected address and barcode information to the print image ﬁle before it is printed. However, in many cases, these corrections cannot make it back to the owners of these addresses to update the lists they came from. Over time, the ability to update the print image address expires, and future mailings cannot be delivered as addressed, resulting in an increase of UAA. That leads to the other point of confusion: Update What? The address on the mail piece? The address in the database which created the mailing list? Both? Certainly the address on the piece must be updated with the new address prior to mailing. Whether the original mailing list must be updated would depend on which method you are using for Move Update compliance. Let’s brieﬂy review the most common Move Update methods: Address Change Service (ACS) supplies an electronic address change after a mailing. In most cases, the original mailing list is updated with the new address in order to have it appear on the next mailing. The requirement to update the list 185 days prior to the mailing requires mailing to a new address at non-automation rate the ﬁrst time it is mailed if ACS is the only method of Move Update used. The logic is “how could the address be updated within 185 days prior to a mailing if never mailed before?” Any First-Class Mail discount can be claimed the second time the piece is mailed since the ﬁrst mailing “starts the clock” of the ACS move update process. www.PARCELindustry.com http://pe.usps.com http://www.usps.com/cpim/ftp/pubs/pub363.pdf http://www.PARCELindustry.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Parcel - April 2008

PARCEL - April 2008 Contents Editor's Note Moving Forward Recycling for Safety’s Sake Want Some Good News? Negotiations Have No Finish Line... Lowering your Parcel Shipping Costs Meeting Industry Challenges New Pricing, New Opportunities Time to Track It’s Scan-tastic! 10 Recycling Facts The New USPS Law Changes New Law, New Opportunities for Package Shippers A Diamond in the Rough Seven Shipping Trends for 2010 ...and Beyond The Move Update Changes A Simple Shipping Solution A Case Study in Efficiency New Products and Services Industry News Advertiser Index

Parcel - April 2008

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