Naming Rights, Retail Ad Space and Other Ideas
Twenty years ago, when professional sporting teams started selling naming rights to their stadiums and arenas, many purists called it a low point in the commercialization of sports. But today, the number of arenas and ballparks not named after a corporate sponsor is small. For revenue-seeking team owners, it is just too hard to pass up the money that comes with selling your stadiums’ name. Strategy, business development and marketing all play huge factors in naming-rights deals, with top prices for these deals reaching about half a billion dollars, according to Sports Business Journal.
As a business-centered organization looking to boost revenues, does the U.S. Postal Service have opportunities to sell naming rights? The idea of selling the naming rights to an entire Post Office might not be palatable to Congress, as lawmakers like to name post offices after fallen soldiers or local heroes. But what about selling space in parts of the Post Office? For example: this retail counter brought to you by XYZ Co.? Sides of vehicles or automated postal centers in high-traffic areas of retail centers could also hold valuable advertising space. With its national reach, yet local presence, the Postal Service is visible in every community nearly every day. Companies and nonprofit organizations would likely find the opportunities to reach such a large audience appealing.
Read MoreWhat is the appropriate pricing regime for the Postal Service?
This is the fourth topic in our “Five Elements of a Postal Solution” blog series. Link to last week’s topic.
Link to today’s recap.
Link to Thursday’s blog by John Waller.
Link to Wednesday’s blog by Jeff Colvin.
Link to Tuesday’s blog by Jessica Lowrance.
Recapping the week – March 30, 2012
In the fourth week of our blog series, we asked three experts to give us their opinions on an appropriate pricing regime for the Postal Service.
Our bloggers offered diverse ideas about a future pricing regime. Jessica Lowrance believes “eliminating the current concept of classes of mail is a natural step in streamlining operations and simplifying mail usage… [and]…it makes sense to adapt the product offering to how the USPS currently processes mail.” Jeff Colvin envisions “tailoring the price structure of bulk mail to the vast differences in delivery cost around the country.” Lastly, John Waller sees “current competitive market conditions warranting the exploration of a more flexible [price] cap with a narrower scope of application.”
Although Waller identifies the need for a more flexible price cap, he thinks the current requirement has had positive results because “it has forced cost cuts and attention on developing new business models.” However, Colvin points out that “the price cap freezes prices at inflation, effectively removing an important tool companies ordinarily employ to achieve financial stability.” Both do agree that a future price cap should factor in a continued decrease in mail volumes. Lowrance’s blog differs by focusing on Postal Service operations and mail classes. She states, “The major differences within operations are when and where the [mail] piece is accepted and the service standards surrounding the class of mail. The Postal Service could rationalize its services by creating shaped-based products that followed many of the same regulations that exist today.”
Comments to date on this week’s blog include varying ideas. Most agree there should be a responsible approach to increasing prices based on current market conditions. Others added that any Postal Service products or services that cost more than the revenue they bring in should be minimally priced at the breakeven level.
We thank each of the bloggers for their comments and will continue to keep the blogs open for additional input from the public. In addition, we invite you to keep up with the Office of Audit’s latest work through the Audit Project Pages. This site provides a forum for you to share your ideas, comments, and concerns on our open audit projects.
Next week’s blog series will examine the question: What should be done about the overfunding, overpayment, and other unfunded federal mandates?
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Guest Blogger John Waller, consultant on postal and regulatory issues – March 29, 2012
John Waller
The CPI cap requirement has forced cost cuts and attention on developing new business models. These achievements should not be lost in any new pricing requirements. But a CPI cap does not account for the impact of on-going volume and revenues erosion due to electronic diversion and economic downturns. Current competitive market conditions warrant the exploration of a more flexible cap with a narrower scope of application.
Without annual pricing flexibility in excess of the CPI, the Service becomes dependent on exigent, breakeven or legislatively authorized price increases, with periodic rate shock impacts as in the pre-PAEA days. With more flexibility in the cap and more limited application, these impacts can be avoided through manageable, predictable, annual increases sufficient to ensure a financially viable Postal Service.
Ideally, a new pricing policy would mimic PAEA requirements for competitive products as closely as possible. Market conditions will act as a restraint on unreasonable price increases given the competition that exists between postal products and the Internet, especially for commercial mailers. However, as a matter of public policy protection for the individual citizen mailer, a cap may still be warranted for single-piece letters and packages.
While the cap could initially be applicable only to single piece letters and packages, a safety valve could be established for other products by authorizing the Commission to extend the cap coverage, if unreasonable prices or undue discrimination is detected. The recognition that excessive price increases could trigger a death spiral will keep the Service focused on cutting costs and developing new sources of revenue. The Service has exercised appropriate restraint with reasonable, but above CPI, price increases for competitive products. This pricing flexibility has allowed those products to remain affordable and profitable yet keep management attention on cost cutting and innovation.
As with competitive products, it is reasonable to require market dominant prices to cover cost plus a reasonable contribution for institutional costs. If a product suddenly fails to cover costs, then a specific period of time could be required for returning the product to profitability before mandating price increases through the regulatory process. Pricing requirements should also foster workshare discounts to continue the privatization of upstream functions.
At some point it may be reasonable to transfer most bulk mail products to the competitive category. But in the meantime, once a lean system is established, removing the cap for commercial products is a means of testing the feasibility and value of such a move.
To the extent that a cap is retained, it should take into consideration the financial impact of the steady erosion in volume due to competing media. As volume declines, non-volume-variable costs in a lean postal system become a larger share of total costs and average unit costs increase even if input costs (labor, transportation, etc.) are under the CPI. The percentage of total costs that are fixed accelerates as volume becomes ever smaller due to the structure of street delivery.
The cap should also allow for price adjustments to offset the loss of contribution due to the change in mail mix. Since 2006, Standard mail has become the largest component of volume with about 1/3rd the unit contribution of the previously dominant First-Class.
Additionally, universal service requirements should be taken into consideration. The need for an above CPI cap can by mitigated by reducing legal constraints, such as a required 6-day delivery or mandated price preferences for certain products. If Postal Service requests for changes, especially in delivery innovations, are rejected, then the resultant impact on profit can either be subsidized or be incorporated in the cap to allow recovery of these costs through postage.
A future cap should be less than CPI if volume trends turn around. When volume is growing, price caps less than the CPI are reasonable. The Service could propose the mechanics of a new cap with adoption requiring regulatory approval based on public hearings. To allow a capability to respond to new price impacts, a legislated cap could be a simple CPI plus an x factor to be determined by an expert body informed by public hearings. The legislation could specify certain factors that must be considered in future caps, such as volume per delivery point.
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Guest Blogger Jeff Colvin, Director, U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General – March 28, 2012
Jeff Colvin
You hear it all the time.
Question: What company, facing a precipitous decline in demand for its product, would raise prices?
Answer: A state-owned monopoly, with a mandate to meet a multi-billion dollar service obligation.
Question: What company, losing billions a year, would not raise prices?
Answer: A business facing such powerful multi-modal competition that its captive market is slipping away like time into the future.
So the Postal Service, and the $900 billion industry it supports is in a huge mess – but what’s price got to do with it? And what can be done, via pricing, to make things better?
The problem is well-known. The Postal Service’s most profitable product First Class Mail was already battered by e-substitution, when the postal ship sailed into the greatest recession in recent memory. And it’s still taking on water, losing $1.3 billion in January 2012 alone, according to unaudited results filed with the PRC. January volume fell by 2.3% from last year.
While there is some improvement in shipping services, there isn’t enough to make up for the gigantic losses in the letter market. Like it or not, the action is all in letters, and increasingly, in bulk letters.
But raising the bulk letter price is not easy. The price cap freezes prices at inflation effectively removing an important tool companies ordinarily employ to achieve financial stability. Of course, Congress could soften its impact by loosening it to compensate for falling volumes, but it may not be enough. But Royal Mail and its regulator Ofcom recently concluded that even a cap watered down by such a volume-adjustment mechanism fails to provide for adequate pricing flexibility in labor intensive industries like postal.
More importantly, the pricing problem is not strictly a legislative issue. The Postal Service says that it wants to raise the stamp price to 50¢, but is much more cautious when it comes to raising bulk mail prices.
The worry is that demand might now be significantly more sensitive to price increases, because of e-substitution, than in the past. The jury is out on that one. The available research on what economists call ‘elasticity’ says First Class Mail, and even Standard Mail, are still pretty price insensitive, so much so that an increase in price would actually raise revenue and contribution. It may be that e-substitution to letters is more a trend, whose ebbs and flows depend more on technology and culture than on incumbent pricing.
Still, the question is an empirical one, and short of the basic research on whether demand characteristics have really changed, the obvious test – raise prices and see what happens – does carry risk. So, what can be done with prices to improve the Postal Service’s bottom line?
Let me offer a modest proposal. Why not tailor the price structure of bulk mail to the vast differences in delivery cost around the country. Delivery costs vary dramatically by ZIP code according to the density of the population. It would improve efficiency if prices tracked those differences.
In fact, simulations indicate that, even keeping total revenue constant, adjusting prices to delivery costs, could increase contribution by $800 million by shifting volume from high cost to low cost delivery areas.
It won’t solve the problem, but as they say, a billion here and billion there . . .
N.B: The views presented in this blog posting do not necessarily reflect the views of the OIG or any other organization. They are the views of the author alone.
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Guest Blogger Jessica Lowrance, Executive Vice President for the Association for Postal Commerce (PostCom) – March 27, 2012
Jessica Lowrance
Today, the Postal Service offers an array of products that ultimately deliver a piece of mail from point A to point B. This original product has been sliced and diced to over 4,000 price points. From this price list, mailers pick the shape that best fits their mailing – a letter, flat, or package. Next, the mailers chooses a class of mail (First-Class, Standard, Periodicals, or Package Services/Parcels) based on rules and regulations established by the Postal Service. The Postal Service further distinguishes classes of mail by delivery or service standards. Additional services are available to mailers that occur pre- or post-delivery, especially if the piece is found to be undeliverable.
Eliminating the current concept of classes of mail is a natural step in streamlining operations and simplifying mail usage. From my perspective, it makes sense to adapt the product offering to how the USPS currently processes mail. Today, shape influences how a piece gets processed and which machines are used to move the mail through the system. This, then, affects how much it costs the USPS to process the piece and ultimately the price of the service.
In the eyes of a postal machine, a letter is a letter. The major differences within operations are when and where the piece is accepted and the service standards surrounding the class of mail. The Postal Service could rationalize its services by creating shaped-based products that followed many of the same regulations that exist today. Under such a revised product list, the Postal Service could offer a letter product that was differentiated further by where the piece was entered and the services purchased through the IMb.
For example, if the piece contained a bank statement and the mailer wanted 1-3 day service, it would be entered at a facility that met those service standards as well as any presort and destination entry requirements. The Intelligent Mail barcode on the piece could indicate that it was sealed against inspection and would be automatically forwarded if the recipient changed addresses. If the mailer wanted or needed additional return services, it could indicate which services were requested via the IMb. The Postal Service would no longer have to be concerned with processing preferred over deferred service letters, as all letter pieces when processed would be processed together.
This a la carte price offering would provide the mailing community with the opportunity to reach deeper presort levels and dropship further downstream in postal operations. Over time this should reduce upstream operations and postal costs.
In order to move forward with this suggested alternative, the Postal Service would need to go before the Postal Regulatory Commission to change its mail classification schedule (MCS). This process would allow for interested parties to comment to the Commission on the Postal Service’s new product categories and how it translates to existing service performance reporting, pricing, and costing.
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What is the appropriate pricing regime for the Postal Service?
The pricing of postal products is critical to ensure value for Postal Service customers. Although, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 streamlined the pricing and classification process, no significant changes have been made in almost 6 years. Additionally, law requires that all market-dominant product price increases to be tied to a Consumer Price Index (CPI) price cap. Is this an adequate pricing approach for a 21st century postal service?
Are there other objectives that should be achieved with modern pricing? The Postal Service’s president and chief marketing/sales officer said ―”…when we make it simple to mail, our customers will do business with us.” However, mailers, employees, and the public do not always understand all of the prices the Postal Service offers. Stakeholders have noted that complex rates aren’t necessarily a bad thing for mailers and that most large mailers calculate their postage with a computer rather than paper and pencil. Is the use of computerized pricing by mailers a 21st century solution or a symptom of a disease?
In fiscal year (FY) 2010 the Postal Service had more than 7,600 domestic prices with 2,361 prices (31 percent) not used in FY 2010 and another 1,237 (17 percent) used on less than 10 mailpieces. This means that nearly half of the Postal Service’s domestic prices were not used by customers at all or not used often. Today there are over 8,000 domestic prices for the Postal Service’s three primary product lines: letters, flats, and parcels, along with additional services such as insurance, delivery confirmation, and certified mail. Does it make sense to have so many prices or should pricing be simplified?
Continuing pricing discussions include how to establish prices — a top-down or bottom-up pricing model? What pricing tools could potentially promote better efficiency and incentivize good performance? Are work sharing pass-throughs an efficient measure of costs avoided by the Postal Service? Is the CPI an adequate safeguard to ensure efficiency and financial viability for the future?
We would like to hear from you about how the Postal Service should or should not redefine pricing in support of a lean and simple national infrastructure with a right-sized workforce in the 21st Century and beyond.
For this week’s topic, we’ve also asked the following guest commentators to discuss this topic over the next three days:
• Jessica Lowrance, Executive Vice President for the Association for Postal Commerce, on Tuesday, March 27.
• Jeff Colvin, Director, USPS Office of Inspector General, on Wednesday, March 28.
• John Waller, consultant on postal and regulatory issues, on Thursday, March 29.
We hope you can join the debate. Please check in throughout the week for their thoughts, and share your comments along the way. On Friday, March 30, we will summarize and conclude the discussion on this important topic.
Our Guest Bloggers
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| Jessica Lowrance | Jeff Colvin | John Waller |
Jessica Dauer Lowrance is the Executive Vice President for the Association for Postal Commerce (PostCom). She has been with PostCom for almost four years working with and representing business mailers to all postal stakeholders. Prior to joining PostCom, she was a pricing economist for the Postal Service.
Dr. Jeffrey Colvin has published many articles on postal issues. After 23 years with the Postal Service, he is now with the USPS Office of Inspector General.
John Waller is a consultant on postal and regulatory issues. Previously he was the Director of the PRC’s Office of Accountability and Compliance.
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Online Shopping on the Rise! What’s in it for the Postal Service?
In today’s world we have the opportunity to do just about anything with just the click of a mouse and a few key strokes. Recent studies show online retail sales continuing to grow despite the economic slowdown and decline of overall retail sales. A previous blog, Could Radio Frequency Identification Make the U.S. Postal Service the Premier Delivery System, stated, “Last year Americans spent $155.2 billion shopping online. This year Americans are projected to spend more than $190 billion.” Purchases made online have to be shipped and this provides a great opportunity for the Postal Service to increase parcel delivery service.
The Postal Service delivers almost half the world’s mail and more than 171 billion pieces annually, of this amount, roughly 3 billion are packages (Source: 2010 Report on Form 10-K, United States Postal Service). In addition, the Postal Service is often the last mile option for delivering FedEx, UPS and DHL packages. In 2007, if given a choice, 46 percent of consumers would select the Postal Service to deliver their packages.(Source:Package Delivery Study conducted by comScore, March 2007.)
Loading ...Stamp Distribution Networks: Finding New Efficiencies
The sale of stamps and related products are a core Postal Service business. The Postal Service prints billions of commemorative and definitive stamps annually to enable customers to mail pre-paid domestic and international mail and to also encourage stamp collecting. Given the traditional importance of stamps to the Postal Service, it is vital that the process by which stamps are distributed to customers be both timely and secure.
Stamp Distribution Centers (SDCs) issue stamps to thousands of Post Offices, postal stores, and contract stations (sites under contract to the Postal Service typically located in retail establishments) nationwide. Not only do the SDCs distribute all accountable stamp items (stamps, coils, envelopes, and postcards), but they also accept obsolete and redeemed stock for destruction. During fiscal year 2010, the Postal Service consolidated its existing stamp distribution network into six SDCs. The goal of this consolidation was to standardize and automate work processes, reduce space requirements, improve transportation, and reduce stamp destruction costs.
Loading ...A Lower Volume Postal Service?
The U.S. Postal Service is used to delivering large amounts of mail. Last year, it delivered more than 177 billion pieces. More mail pieces are sent per person in the United States than almost anywhere else in the world. But mail volume has been declining. How will the Postal Service change if volumes continue to fall? Is the Postal Service even financially sustainable at lower volume levels?
The Office of Inspector General (OIG) asked the George Mason University School of Public Policy (GMU) to find out. The results of GMU’s work appear in a paper released today on our website.
GMU researchers looked at how mail volumes of 150, 125, 100, and 75 billion would affect the Postal Service’s financial position and cost structure. Their results are encouraging. They found that the Postal Service is financially sustainable at volume levels down to 100 billion pieces per year, although price increases above inflation would be needed. The cost structure of the Postal Service would also change at lower volume levels. For example, delivery would account for a much larger share of total costs.
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