SAN DIEGO, CA. — The United States Postal Service today recognized Fire Mountain Gems and Beads of Grants Pass, Ore., with its Strategic Business Development Award for the company’s commitment to a successful business partnership with the Postal Service. A select group of postal customers was acknowledged and recognized for their contributions to the continued success of the mailing industry at the annual National Postal Forum, being held here this week.
The Strategic Business Development Award recognizes customers who have kept pace as technology advances. They're the innovators. They embrace new technologies and implement best practices to improve efficiency and productivity in their mail operations. They're always working to improve their operations and provide customers with a mail product that delivers increased value and business results while benefiting the mailing industry overall.
A privately-held company, Fire Mountain Gems and Beads (FMG) was founded in 1973 by Chris and Stuart Freedman. It was originally located in Studio City, CA., and now is based in Grants Pass. FMG is a mail order company and national market leader specializing in jewelry making supplies, such as gems, gold, silver, and beads. FMG’s Chief Executive Officer Vern Frol accepted the award at today’s event.
FMG was looking for a way to open up additional domestic and international channels to support its industry lead while at the same time, become more operationally efficient, reduce call center costs, transit time and enhance customer satisfaction. A meeting was set up between FMG and the U.S. Postal Service to discuss these various needs. For their international shipments, the USPS presented FMG with an international business solution resulting in a Global Expedited Package Service (GEPS) agreement which was signed by FMG.
At the same time, the USPS performed a domestic, competitive financial analysis for Priority Mail Commercial Plus Pricing (PM CPP). The final recommendations added considerable value for FMG to follow-up and implement these solutions. FMG upgraded to a brand-new, state-of-the-art shipping system for domestic and international shipments. In addition, they partnered with a PC Postage Vendor, Endicia.com, to assist in the reduction of transit time via PM CPP.
The new shipping system and Endicia.com offered ease of use in automated shipping labels, expanded custom form information, detailed reports and an interface with their new upgraded shipping system. The results for their domestic markets were very promising. Internationally, the GEPS agreement allowed FMG to ship product to an additional 100 countries. A more robust return solution is currently under consideration. The partnership forged among Endicia.com, FMG and USPS has been mutually beneficial.
The National Postal Forum is the mailing industry’s largest trade show and networking event for industry professionals. Since 1968, it has provided business mailers with ongoing training and education, and helped them keep pace with the mailing industry’s rapid progress. Held once a year in the spring, the Forum is a combination educational conference/trade show offering a wide range of opportunities for attendees. For more information, visit www.npf.org.
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A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 150 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. With 32,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, usps.com, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $67 billion and delivers nearly 40 percent of the world’s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 29th in the 2010 Fortune 500. Black Enterprise and Hispanic Business magazines ranked the Postal Service as a leader in workforce diversity. The Postal Service has been named the Most Trusted Government Agency six consecutive years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute.
