How to ship via Media Mail and make it a viable shipping option?

[Shrevvy]

You can use someone like UPS Mail Innovations for BPM without getting your own permit. You ship using their permit and can benefit from their discount prices as well. Since they insert deeper into the mail stream, you actually get better delivery times too.

What's this all about? I've never heard of them.

 

UPS, FedEx and others offer a mail aggregating service. They collect shipments from a lot of vendors, aggregate them and insert them into the mail processing centers throughout the US. It is a great way to get the benefit of a permit without having one and without all the work on your end. You pay more than you otherwise would, but less than "rack rates." Pricing is based on volume as is eligibility. I believe Mail Innovations and others have minimums, but I don't recall. We shipped with Mail Innovations for a few years. Using an aggregator, they do most of the sorting. We sold our business a couple years ago and I don't recall how much we did. I believe we did some top level sorting and they did the rest. You can also use services like BPM which are not available as an individual.

 

EDIT: To clarify, Mail Innovations does not pay the stated postal rates. They get a break for their volume. They take a margin. So, your price is not the volume price (which you wouldn't get anyway because their volume is huge), but can be lower than the standard postal rates depending on your volume.

[skypinkblu]

Here it is, they specifically exclude them, it was not worded this way previously.

 

https://about.usps.com/notices/not121/not121_tech.htm

 

Media Mail packages may not contain advertising. Comic books do not meet this standard. Books may contain incidental announcements of other books and sound recordings may contain incidental announcements of other sound recordings. In accordance with standards in the Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM), Section 170, Media Mail packages must have a delivery address and the sender’s return address and are subject to inspection by the Postal Service™. Upon such inspection, matter not eligible for the Media Mail rate may be assessed at the proper price and sent to the recipient postage due, or the sender may be contacted for additional postage.

 

For more information about Media Mail service, please visit www.usps.com or call 1-800-ASK-USPS (1-800-275-8777). Complete explanations of qualified items can be found in the DMM.

 

PSN 7610-07-000-4037

 

Notice 121, October 2012

 

Well I understand their clarification, but they are saying that comic books dont meet "this" standard, meaning containing advertising.

 

TPBs, HCs, and Art books (which is what the IDW books are more akin to) meet the standard.

 

I used that reasoning for years, until they changed it to actually say comic books. Prior to that, my post office agreed that they were fine, I've never bothered asking after someone here posted the changed wording, because it's pretty clear.

 

We need to remember that most clerks are not collectors, so they are not going to know the difference between a reprint with no advertising (the IDW's) and a regular comic. Do we really want them opening the books and looking inside to check?

 

I'm certain management doesn't want them doing that because besides slowing things down, it could lead to all kinds of other problems.

 

I'm sure that's why the wording changed, to make it easier for the workers.

 

Certainly hardbound books would fall under books, they don't preclude children's books.

[Gaard]

Assuming that Media Mail doesn't allow comics, what's the cheapest way to go?

[skypinkblu]

Regional priority mail, you get the boxes from USPS online.

[jcjames]

One of my last board purchases was shipped media. Which was awesome, since their shipping charge was enough for priority

Yeah, that happens a lot too.