Amine's Blog

Welcome to the DYMO Endicia Blog by Amine Khechfe, DYMO Endicia Founder and General Manager, with more than 20 years of experience in the mailing and shipping industry. Read about industry news, consider interesting insights, explore new products & services and learn about various tools to move your business forward.

Why Ship Internationally with the USPS?

December 14, 2010

Just a quick post to let you all know that I will be presenting a webinar on “Price Changes & Adapting to New Trends for International Shipments”, Tuesday December 14th at 2pm ET. You can sign up for it here. [more]

2011 USPS Price Change(s): a Clarification

November 10, 2010

As most of you probably know by now, the Postal Service has seen its exigent rate case rejected by the PRC (Postal Regulatory Commission), and they have since appealed that decision. The proposal would have added approximately $2.3 billion in new revenue for the USPS, with an average price increase across mailing products of 5.6% (a 44 cent stamp would have gone up to 46 cents, for instance). The PRC denied the request on grounds that the Postal Service’s current financial difficulties were not caused by the recent recession, and thus did not justify a price increase beyond the rate of inflation (which is what an exigent rate case is supposed to be based on). [more]

New China Customs Regulations Changes

September 30, 2010

China has recently announced a series of customs regulations changes, effective September 1, 2010. Apparently, many Chinese companies were importing goods into China as personal goods (as the duty thresholds were much higher than for commercial goods) and the Chinese government has decided to put an end to it. So prior to September 1st, the threshold for personal goods was $200 to $400 per shipment, whereas now it is under $8 per shipment. As a result, just about every shipment entering China is being assessed for duties and Chinese importers are in a panic, especially Chinese Couriers in the US who compete with the likes of FedEx, DHL and UPS. [more]

PACT Act: Can We Still Ship Tobacco?

September 15, 2010

Has anyone heard of the PACT? Seems like another fancy acronym… Well, it stands for the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act which was signed into law by Congress on 3/31/2010 and became effective on 6/29/2010. This means that cigarettes, including roll-your-own tobacco and smokeless tobacco are “nonmailable” matter and cannot be shipped using the U.S. Postal Service® or common carriers such as UPS and FedEx (unless your company has a standing injunction against this law). [more]

5-Day Delivery: What It Means for Shippers

September 2, 2010

It sure seemed that for a couple of weeks time, all I was reading about was the post office going to a 5-day delivery schedule versus the current 6 day which includes Saturday. Basically eliminating Saturday delivery. This is currently being debated but what does this mean for shippers? [more]

Give Your Buyers' Time the Priority

August 26, 2010

Its so cliché to hear from different vendors how you can save money and time using their products. Most of the time it’s true but hard to quantify. We can hang our hat on hard costs like knowing that a 2 Lb Priority mail package going to a household probably saves a couple of bucks at least over the private carriers’ ground products for example. One of the soft “indirect” costs that I’ve always been fascinated with is the reduction of customer service costs using the US Postal Service for domestic parcels. The main advantage here is that you would be using Priority Mail (or First-Class) parcels which in most cases get there in 2 days (3 to some further out locations) while the private carriers’ (who will remain nameless) ground products are meant to get there in 4 to 6 days. [more]

Introducing Amine's Corner

August 24, 2010

In today’s world of social networking and tweeting on one side and being too busy to breathe on the other, I thought it would be interesting and hopefully fun to have a place where I could share my take on the state of the mailing and shipping industry as a “veteran” who’s been around for 20+ years now (how time flies!) [more]