PRC Approves Potpourri Holdings' First-Ever Catalog NSA

Last March Potpourri Holdings Inc. filed the first-ever catalog Negotiated Service Agreement request, which The Postal Regulatory Commission recently approved (Click here for the complete ruling.)

Demonstrating both the USPS’s commitment to growing catalog volume and its improved understanding of how the unique catalog business model functions, this is the third Market-Dominant NSA approved since 2006’s postal reform act (PAEA) It took a lot of time and much hard work by Potpourri to come to fruition, but the American Catalog Mailers Association (ACMA) expects it to pave the way for other cataloger NSAs. ACMA also anticipates it will be among several initiatives by the Postal Service to boost catalog mail volume.

According to ACMA, the essential moving parts of the NSA are as follows:

The Postal Service has established annual and quarterly thresholds to recognize Potpourri Group's recent catalog mailing activity.

Carrier Route and High Density mail above the quarterly threshold receives a lower postal rate, making incremental mail volume feasible for Potpourri and generates additional, incremental contribution volume for the Postal Service.

Covering five years, the thresholds are adjusted to recognize volume growth from the increased circulation.

The discounts apply only to Carrier Route and High Density volume, and are tiered at 10%, 15%, and 20% off published rates, dependent on the actual volume mailed

Frugi's Growth Required Scalable Solution

Frugi, a fast-growth Cornish based ethical organic clothing brand started by Lucy & Kurt Jewson, recently celebrated its tenth year. The business has experienced unprecedented growth and has won the Queens Award for Export.

Fortunately, a new scalable retail platform from MNP helps keep the fast-paced growth on track. The immediate challenge was inventory management and real-time integration to ensure a consistent brand experience regardless of channel, which for Frugi’s include direct sales via catalogues, online marketplaces, and separate B2B and B2C eCommerce sites. In addition, B2B is a major part of the business for Frugi, including sales to John Lewis and a significant number of independent stores.

The capacity to deal with high double-digit growth, manage inventory by channel, provide a holistic view of customers, and support top-line scalability were key factors for Frugi, as they are for many of MNP’s fast-growth client base.

MNP's OMS (order management system) was selected to provide the central enterprise retail platform, real-time inventory management for all sales channels, and bi-directional Web service feeds with the bluCommerce eCommerce platform. The OMS centralizes customer data for customer service and to enable the marketing team to grow top-line sales from the extensive customer data available. Marketing will be driven from segmented customer-level attributes, with outputs to third-party service provider More2.

MNP provides a modular approach to enterprise retailing solutions including PLM, PIM & Buying, OMS, WMS, and in-store tablet solutions in the UK, Germany and USA.