Effective January 22, 2017, the Postal Service™ will revise Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM®), to reflect changes to prices and mailing standards for the following competitive products:
n Priority Mail Express®.
n Priority Mail®.
n First-Class Package Service®.
n Parcel Select®.
n USPS Retail Ground™.
n Extra Services.
n Return Services.
n Mailer Services.
n Recipient Services.
This article describes new prices and product features for Competitive Products established by the Governors of the United States Postal Service®. New prices are available on the Postal Explorer® website at http://pe.usps.com.
Competitive Products changes are identified by product as follows:
There are no product changes scheduled for the Priority Mail Express competitive product.
There are no product changes scheduled for the Priority Mail competitive product.
The Postal Service will offer an optional Area Distribution Center (ADC) presort for First-Class Package Service (FCPS) parcels to improve service for mailers. As a result, a new optional FCPS ADC Labeling List, L015, will be added.
There are no product changes scheduled for the Parcel Select competitive product.
There are no product changes scheduled for the USPS Retail Ground competitive product.
There are no product changes scheduled for Extra Services competitive products.
Information on the Parcel Return Service annual permit fee and annual account maintenance fee can be found in the “Other” section below and in the Domestic Mailing Services Federal Register Notice.
The Postal Service will add 1-foot and 2-foot managed mail tray box flat rate pricing as an option to the current shipment containers for Premium Forwarding Service Commercial® dispatches.
The Postal Service is providing customers using the Enterprise PO Box Online (EPOBOL) system with the option to prorate semi-annual fees one time to align payment periods for multiple boxes. The prorated fee for each such box will be based on the number of months between the expiration of the current fee and the month of the payment alignment. Additional information on prorating of the semi-annual EPOBOL fees can be found in the Domestic Mailing Services Federal Register Notice.
The Postal Service is retiring Topological Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (Tiger/ZIP+4) service.
The Postal Service is eliminating the payment of annual mailing fees for Parcel Select and Parcel Select Lightweight. The annual return service permit fee and annual account maintenance fee for Parcel Return Service will also be eliminated. Additional information on the elimination of annual mailing and account maintenance fees can be found in the Domestic Mailing Services Federal Register Notice.
The Postal Service is eliminating the payment of permit imprint application fees for Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, First-Class Package Service, Parcel Select, and Parcel Select Lightweight competitive products. Additional information on the elimination of the permit imprint application fee can be found in the Domestic Mailing Services Federal Register Notice.
The Postal Service provides additional resources to assist customers with this price change for competitive products. These tools include price lists, downloadable price files, and Federal Register Notices, which may be found on the Postal Explorer® website at http://pe.usps.com.
Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM)
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200 Commercial Letters, Cards, Flats, and Parcels
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250 Parcel Select
253 Prices and Eligibility
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[Delete 1.3, Annual Mailing Fee, in its entirety and renumber current 1.4 as new 1.3.]
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4.0 Price Eligibility for Parcel Select and Parcel Select Lightweight
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4.3 Parcel Select Lightweight
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4.3.1 General Eligibility
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[Revise the text of item c. to read as follows:]
c. Postage must be paid under 254.1.1.2.
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254 Postage Payment and Documentation
1.0 Basic Standards for Postage Payment
1.1 Postage Payment Options
[Revise the introductory text of 1.1.1 to read as follows and renumber the text of 1.1 as new 1.1.1.]
1.1.1 Parcel Select
Parcel Select postage may be paid with:
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[Add new 1.1.2 to read as follows:]
1.1.2 Parcel Select Lightweight
Parcel Select Lightweight postage may be paid with permit imprint.
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280 First-Class Package Service
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285 Mail Preparation
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[Add new 2.0 to read as follows:]
2.0 Optional ADC Presort
Each optional ADC presorted First-Class Package Service mailing must meet the applicable standards in 280 and must be labeled as follows:
a. Line 1: L015.
b. Line 2: “FC PKG ADC.”
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500 Additional Mailing Services
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505 Return Services
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4.0 Parcel Return Service
4.1 Prices and Fees
[Revise the title and text of 4.1.1 to read as follows:]
4.1.1 Permit
The participant must obtain a permit and pay postage at the Post Office where the permit is held through an advance deposit account (see Notice 123 — Price List).
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4.2 Basic Standards
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4.2.2 Conditions for Mailing
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[Revise the text of item c. to read as follows:]
c. Parcels show the permit number.
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4.2.7 Reapplying After Cancellation
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[Delete item b. and renumber current items c. and d. as new items b. and c.]
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507 Mailer Services
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3.0 Premium Forwarding Service
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3.3 Premium Forwarding Service Commercial
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3.3.3 Conditions
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c. The postage is charged per shipment container as follows:
[Revise the text of item c.1 to read as follows:]
1. A sack and its contents are considered one piece for calculation of the price of postage and must not exceed 70 pounds. Postage is calculated by the weight of the sack and the zone, based on the ZIP Code of the servicing Post Office and the delivery address for the shipment, minus the tare weight.
[Add new item c.2 to read as follows and renumber current item c.2 as new item c.3.]
2. A 1-foot managed mail (MM) tray box or 2-foot MM tray box are considered one piece for the applicable Premium Forwarding Service Commercial branded flat rate tray box price.
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509 Other Services
1.0 Address Information System Services
1.1 General Information
[Revise the second sentence of 1.1 to read as follows:]
***These services are described in 1.2 through 1.34.***
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[Delete 1.29, Topological Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing, in its entirety and renumber current 1.30 through 1.35 as new 1.29 through 1.34.]
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We will incorporate these revisions into the next update of the online DMM, which is available via Postal Explorer® at http://pe.usps.com.
— Product Classification, Marketing, 12-22-16
