Neil O'Keefe

It's catalog season, the time of year when our mailboxes sag with accumulated paper and retailers nationwide cross their fingers. But even though print continues to dominate the world of presentation, the digital revolution promises to transform the shopping experience. More than 20 billion catalogs were mailed in the U.S. last year, about a quarter of which were devoted to fashion. Apparel brands mail more catalogs than any other class of retailer, usually between 12 and 24 catalogs each year because as fashionable as, say, maxi skirts are this season, next year no one will want to be wearing

The two-year-old American Catalog Mailers Association (ACMA) trudges along like a little engine that could. But can it? Despite its newness and relatively tiny membership, this organization has delivered an effective wake-up call to both the USPS and the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) on the plight of catalog mailers, helping foster the recent postal “summer sale.”

The two-year-old American Catalog Mailers Association (ACMA) trudges along like a little engine that could. But can it? Despite its newness and relatively tiny membership, this organization has delivered an effective wake-up call to both the USPS and the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) on the plight of catalog mailers, helping foster the recent postal “summer sale.”

"The USPS has demonstrated their willingness to be proactive and take advantage of flexible pricing through the recently proposed 'Summer Sale,'" said Neil O'Keefe, vice president of the Direct Marketing Association's catalog and multichannel merchant segment, in a letter to members on May 18. He urged all catalog mailers to support the effort by faxing letters to Postal Regulatory Commission Chairman Dan Blair asking for the PRC to "expeditiously endorse this program so that we can move forward and take full advantage of the benefits throughout the coming summer months."

Catalogers can’t afford a postal rate increase of any size in 2009, yet come May the USPS is raising rates at an average of 3.8 percent. This news comes on the heels of Postmaster General Jack Potter's warning that the USPS is staring at a possible $6 billion loss in fiscal year 2009. The USPS’ costs are unmanageable, and it simply doesn’t have enough Flats Sequencing Systems (FSS) equipment available today to generate savings based on automation. Catalogers don't have the luxury to wait for the USPS to pass along the savings generated from the FSS automation.