D'oh! USPS Over Produced Simpson Stamps

"The money-losing U.S. Postal Service guessed that TV cartoon character Homer Simpson and his family were twice as popular as Elvis Presley when it came to sales of commemorative stamps. As Homer would say, 'D’oh!' In a move that wasted $1.2 million in printing costs, the service produced 1 billion of  'The Simpsons' stamps and sold 318 million," writes Angela Greiling Keane on Bloomberg.com.

According to Keane, "The Postal Service inspector general in a singled out the overproduction of stamps marking the 20th anniversary of the cartoon’s run on News Corp. (NWS)’s Fox network as an example of failing to align stamp production with demand."

The inspector general criticized the process the service uses to decide how many stamps to produce, saying it’s unscientific and too much of a judgment call.

In response to the report, the Postal Service said the problem was caused in part because the Simpson stamps had a fixed value unlike a “forever” stamp and could no longer be used by themselves to mail a letter after postal rates increased.

The Simpson stamps, sold in 2009 and 2010, came in five designs featuring Homer, his wife, Marge, and children Bart, Lisa and baby Maggie. The stamps sold for 44 cents, 1 cent less than it costs now to mail a letter. 

To read the entire article, click here.

To read the Stamp Manufacturing and Inventory Management Audit Report click here.