OverDrive: Record Number of Libraries Hit One Million Digital Lends in 2023

*Comparable sales grew 3.3 percent, on top of 22.9 percent growth last year. **Comparable sales growth reflected traffic growth of 3.9 percent. **Store comparable sales increased 3.4 percent, on top of 18.0 percent growth last year. **Digital comparable sales grew 3.2 percent, following growth of 50.2 percent last year. **Same-day services (Order Pickup, Drive Up and Shipt) grew 8 percent this year, led by Drive Up, which grew in the mid-teens on top of more than 120 percent last year. **More than 95 percent of Target's first quarter sales were fulfilled by its stores. *Sales growth was led by frequently-purchased categories, including Food & Beverage, Beauty, and Household Essentials. *Operating margin rate of 5.3 percent was well below expectations, driven primarily by gross margin pressure reflecting actions to reduce excess inventory as well as higher freight and transportation costs.

The U.S. Postal Service is harming both publishers and itself with its current ratemaking process, the News/Media Alliance (NMA) charges in a letter to the Postal Rate Commission. “While the Postal Service incurs record losses, Periodicals mailers have been forced to make difficult business decisions ranging from cutting staff to shuttering titles and closing their doors, all of which ultimately harms our society,” the letter states. Since 2021, the USPS has raised periodical rates “generally twice a year by a cumulative total of 47.8 percent,” the NMA writes. “During that time, the portion of those increases due to the additional rate authorities have exceeded the rate of inflation by more than 150 percent.”

FY2022 fourth quarter service performance scores covering July 1 through July 15 included: *First-Class Mail: 93.2 percent of First-Class Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, consistent with performance from the fiscal third quarter. *Marketing Mail: 93.7 percent of Marketing Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, a decrease of .9 percentage points from the fiscal third quarter. *Periodicals: 87.2 percent of Periodicals delivered on time against the USPS service standard, an improvement of .6 percentage points from the fiscal third quarter.