Arandell Corporation

Susan Pinter, Director of Postal Systems

Earlier this year, the United States Postal Service (USPS) announced the implementation of revised deflection requirements, which went into effect on January 4^th, 2010.  As a follow up to this implementation, the industry met with the USPS early this week to further discuss the challenges ahead with the droop/deflection requirement.  The revised rule states: if a piece does not comply with the deflection 3 inch rule, the piece drops to the Non-Automated Rates.  According to the USPS, the floppy pieces need to be taken off the machines and manually processed because the flimsy flats do not feed well on the automated equipment. In turn, this is incurring additional manufacturing and processing costs to the postal service. This will be a big impact for ALL mailers!!!  A perfect example is a Standard Mail Flat Catalog weighing less than 3 ounces - The postage will go from .262 cents per piece to .367 cents per piece. This is a 28% increase!!!  WOW, the catalogers are not happy with this rule, especially in today’s world of cutting costs and reducing page counts.

The industry continues to work with the USPS as partners to come up with solutions that benefit the mail owner along with their vendors: the Mailer and the USPS!  More to come…….

Jamie Marquardt, Director, Marketing & Communications

Happy Holidays to you and yours from all of us at Arandell Corporation! Our corporate blog’s innaugural year is nearing its end and we can’t begin to express how much we have enjoyed this addition to our marketing repetoire. Here are the links to your favorite articles to date:

A Flurry of Postal Updates: Droop Test, Move Update, Winter Sale, Dry Release Cards

Do you Pass the Droop Test?

9 Reasons to Mail More in 2010

No Postal Increase in 2010 - Really?

Canada Post Corp. Rate Changes Effective January 11, 2010

If you have any suggestions or requests for future blog posts, please send an email to blogging@arandell.com. We thank you for all of your feedback so far and look forward to adding more in the New Year.

On behalf of all of us at Arandell Corporation, we wish you a happy and safe holiday season.

Happy Holidays from all of us at Arandell Corporation.

Don Landis, VP, Postal Affairs

The postal world is always busy, but this week we have received quite a few updates and wanted to makes sure you were aware of the following:

1. DROOP TEST: As announced earlier this year, the USPS will be implementing revised deflection, or droop standards on January 4, 2010. It was announced today, however, that the penalty for not complying with those standards will not be enforced until June of 2010.

2. MOVE UPDATE: Just a reminder that the USPS will implement the penalty phase on the Move Update Standards on January 4, 2010. Catalogers must use one of these USPS approved methods: NCOALink, FASTforward, OneCode ACS, Address Change Service, Ancillary Service Endorsement without ACS. Those using an alternative addressing format such as “Or Current Resident” are not subject to the Move Update Standards.

3. WINTER SALE: We regretfully report that there will be no USPS Winter Sale. There will be a Spring Sale starting in April. Details to come the week of December 20. As soon as we can report more, we will send an update to all of you.

4. DRY RELEASE CARDS: Effective November 20, 2009, the USPS announced that it will allow dry release cards to be affixed to the outside of a catalog when the specifications defined here are met. (For catalogs, please refer to the section titled, “Flats with Attached Release Cards.”) Arandell Corporation is equipped to affix dry release cards and we are happy to work with you to create a catalog layout that adheres to these specifications.

For questions regarding these announcements or any other postal issues, please feel free to contact myself or Susan Pinter any time. We can also be reached at 800-558-8724.

Thank you for visiting the Arandell  Corporation blog. Your visit has just resulted in a $1 contribution to the Make-a-Wish Foundation of America. Our campaign will continue to run through December 15, so please be sure to invite your colleagues, friends and family to visit our blog.

Arandell Corporation wishes you a very Happy Thanksgiving…from our family to yours.

Jamie Marquardt, Director, Marketing & Communications

Have you heard that line before? If so, I hope you don’t accept it as your “final answer.” Just because something has always been done a certain way, that’s no reason to keep doing it the same way, unless of course the method has no room for improvement. And, I certainly hope you have not been applying the “because it has always been done that way” mentality to your catalog design. You can still maintain brand image while also changing up variables such as layouts, messages, formats, sizes, page counts, in-home dates, etc. In fact, you should be changing things up to measure how response rates fluctuate from one catalog design to the next.

Maybe you’re a cataloger who has always mailed letter-size booklets or “Slim Jims.” How has your response rate changed since the USPS implemented its new tabbing regulations earlier this year? If it has gone down, maybe it’s time to try something new, like a traditional upright format. Have you typically produced a catalog with an oblong format? With the USPS bringing out new Droop Test regulations, now is the perfect time to implement a new format for your catalog because the oblong is not going to survive with the new droop/deflection standards. Could you transition to an upright or square format? Try it! Have you always treated all customers, regardless of purchase history, the same? If so, maybe it’s time to use a more dynamic approach to how you target customers. Do you use database marketing to help you with those efforts? If not, it’s time.

all about ROI recently released its “50 Best Tips of 2009“; I highly recommend reading it, as it gives some great ideas for changing up your current multichannel marketing plan (or offering you reassurance for the one you already have). Regardless of what strategies you decide to implement going forward, don’t apply the same ones as this year just because “that’s the way it has always been done.” That’s a sure fire way to bring your success to a standstill. Change is good. Embrace it!

Blake Hutchison, Director of Purchasing

My Paper Prognostications for 2010

Gazing into the crystal ball, here are some things that I see coming in the New Year:

Supply:
Throughout 2009, seldom has a week gone by where we have not read about a sawmill closing, a paper machine being idled or a mill closing their doors. Supply is what paper mills can control the most, and to try to keep pricing in line with demand, they have taken a large chunk of capacity out of the system. The mills have also looked at their platforms and tweaked schedules to fit demand. In some cases, grades and basis weights that were run two to three times per month are now only run once, and some are only run once every six weeks. This has resulted in us seeing lead times and LDC dates push out to four to six weeks on some grades, where they had been only two to three weeks earlier in the year.

Inventories have been worked down to lower-than-normal levels, and I believe that paper mills are going to engage in rush inventory building or order pre-making due to their desire to have cash readily available and not tied up in inventory.

So, with reduced schedules and inventories and fewer machines making paper these days, I would watch for some LDC extensions for the next couple of months. I expect more mill downtime in the first and second quarters as demand decreases over the first half of 2010. If the second half of 2010 is busier than 2009, which I certainly hope it is, I expect longer lead times and potentially some tight markets, especially for SC grades. A key thing to remember is that it is not going to be as easy to get paper during the second and third quarters of 2010 as it was in 2009. Plan ahead.

Demand:
Demand estimates for coated paper in 2010 range from a 2% to 8% INCREASE over 2009 from what I can see. In speaking with the paper mills, a general consensus is that 2009 was horrible, but 2010 should see a small improvement; somewhere in the 3% to 6% range and this is what they are budgeting for. I believe they are hoping that the holiday season goes well and that companies will start to print again. I believe (and hope) they are right in their predictions.

Price:
The increase announcements that were to have taken effect in October never really materialized.  I believe that was more of an effort by the coated and uncoated producers to try to stop the pricing reductions of the second and third quarters more than trying to get more for their grades.

But, rest assured that there will be more increases coming in 2010. Several factors will lead to this, but the big factor is the elimination of the black liquor tax credit at the end of 2009. During the third quarter, U.S. paper mills that had pulping capacity took in almost $1 billion in tax credits from this program. In many cases, this helped the mills to go from red to black on the balance sheets. Well, that is going away. Input costs for the mills have been rising and this credit has been helping them weather the storm. Watch for an announcement sometime in January. That probably will not hold for long (if at all), but there will be at least $3.00/cwt worth of paper increases in 2010. Plan on it for the second half of the year.

If you have any questions, please just let me know!  Thank you again for your business!

BCC Software, a BÖWE BELL + HOWELL company and a leading developer of high-performance mailing technology solutions, announces that Arandell Corporation, one of North America’s largest privately held web offset printing companies, has joined the BCC family thanks to the comprehensive capabilities of Mail Manager Full Service™, BCC’s top-tier postal software product.

“We are delighted that Arandell Corporation has chosen to work with BCC Software as their postal solutions provider,” says BCC Executive Vice President Chris Lien. “We are constantly working to add new features and enhanced functionality to the Mail Manager family and all BCC products and services, to offer the best possible tools to drive the success of current and future clients.”

Mail Manager Full Service™ provides integrated support for the Full Service Intelligent Mail® barcode and delivers a comprehensive suite of USPS® CASS™ and PAVE™ certified presorting and list-management functionality including enhanced merge/purge and deluxe 24/7 automation capabilities, and a proprietary address-matching API that delivers dramatically higher processing speeds than the industry-standard USPS matching engine.

Founded in 1922 and based in Menomonee Falls, WI, Arandell Corporation provides high-quality printing, mailing, distribution, list management, data-based marketing strategies, education, logistics and consulting services to America’s premier custom publishers, catalogers and retailers. Arandell is on the cutting edge of ecologically preferred methods for conserving resources and protecting the environment with their production practices.

“Arandell Corporation is excited about our partnership with BCC Software. With challenges like rapidly-evolving market conditions and the ever-changing postal world, it is essential we partner with companies that allow us to stay ahead of the industry. We know that BCC’s products and services will meet those challenges, while also enabling us to maintain customer loyalty,” says Jim Willms, Arandell’s Vice President of Production Planning.

To read more about BCC Software, click here.

For additional information about Arandell Corporation, click here.