Print Sales Rose 5.8% in Christmas Week (publishersweekly.com)

Retail sales that occurred outside of stores increased 6.8% compared with October 2016. That's a major deceleration from September, when nonstore sales increased 9.2% year over year. New October retail sales data out this morning suggests that the fourth quarter could be off to a rocky start for e-commerce. Growth in U.S. retail sales that take place outside of stores, known as nonstore sales, decelerated in October, with sales dropping 0.3% compared with September 2017, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. Click Read More below for additional information.

MIDLAND, one of the nation’s largest independent packaging and paper distributors, today announced the acquisition of J.Schmid, a full-service branding and creative agency headquartered in Kansas City. Though it’s widely known as a leader in sustainable packaging, e-commerce packaging, distribution automation, and publishing and printing paper supply, MIDLAND is also growing in the area of performance – specifically, direct-to-consumer marketing and strategic consulting. MIDLAND’s commitment to strategic consulting began in 2019 with the acquisition of CohereOne, a Californiabased multichannel consulting and strategic services firm. “We always had a vision to expand our services beyond paper and packaging products, so we made the bold move of acquiring CohereOne to complement our core product offering. Our goal was, and is, to ensure a client’s message reaches the right people in the right places with strategic planning, campaign execution, digital integration and analytics. MIDLAND is thrilled with the performance of CohereOne, and excited to take our strategic consulting business to the next level by bringing J.Schmid onboard,” said MIDLAND’s Co-Owner and Executive Vice President of Publishing & Consulting, Jim O’Toole.

Between Nov. 26 and Dec. 30, the Postal Service accepted 11.7 billion mailpieces and packages into the network with an average delivery time of just 2.5 days.* The Postal Service also released FY23 second quarter service performance scores covering Jan. 1 through Jan. 6. Data for the reporting period shows the average time to deliver a mailpiece or package across the postal network was just 2.6 days. Quarterly data included: *First-Class Mail: 89.4% of First-Class Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, a decrease of 1.6 percentage points from the fiscal first quarter. *Marketing Mail: 93.6% of Marketing Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, consistent with performance from the fiscal first quarter. *Periodicals: 84.5% of Periodicals delivered on time against the USPS service standard, consistent with performance from the fiscal first quarter.