Catalogers – Is FSS Shredding Your Mail?

wecare-catalogdamage“Catalogs are being damaged so frequently in the mail that one company has turned the problem into a new business venture,” writes D. Eadward Tree in Damaged Catalogs Spark New Business Idea.

“[US Monitor] is now offering to tell its clients not only when their catalogs are delivered to customers but also whether those catalogs are ‘received torn, creased, smudged, wrinkled, stained or with water damage,’” according to Tree.

Why would catalogers need a service like this?

Because the USPS and its Flats Sequencing System (FSS) has become notorious for shredding catalogs, magazines and the like. And while the USPS has made some adjustments to their equipment to help alleviate the problem, it is still far from perfect.

“The huge machines have been tweaked to reduce torn covers, ‘flyouts’, and other such problems,” Tree notes. “Still, shifting catalogs from traditional carrier-route bundles to FSS seems likely to cause more damage, especially for thin, flimsy copies.”

According to a press release from US Monitor, “A recent project involving a national catalog brand showed that 23 percent of the catalogs received by our field agents arrived in poor condition.”

That’s a whole lot of your work and your budget being mishandled. You can learn more about the US Monitor program here, or talk to your mailing services provider.