Neither rain, nor sleet, nor… Saturday?
The United States Postal Service’s pitch to drop Saturday delivery really isn’t that big of a deal. Most of us would rather lose a day of service than face another postage increase. As consumers, we can accept that. But can the business community?
In reality, the USPS will likely drop a day AND raise rates as efforts to respond to a projected $7 billion loss this year. As bad as that sounds, Postmaster General John Potter said the agency could face a cumulative loss of $238 billion over 10 years. Even so, he said in a statement, “all is not lost... we can right this ship.”
We disagree.
Like you, we sort through hundreds of e-mails, but we have to think long and hard to recall the last time we mailed or received a personal letter. We found further proof when the majority of the people we asked could not accurately state the current cost of a first class stamp (it is 44 cents, by the way). We are not alone. Reports show that the number of items handled by the post office fell by 17 percent from 213 billion in 2006 to 177 billion last year. Volume is expected to shrink another 15 percent to 150 billion by 2020.
The post office is a victim of technological change, an 8-track player stuck in an MP3 era. But for any business -— whether private or public — to compete effectively, it must provide more service, not less. The post office must change its ways by focusing more on the business wing and less on residential. Standard (junk) mail will become an even larger part of the mix until rates become so high that businesses seek private delivery, which will be the nail in the coffin for the post office (and a boon for newspapers).
The thought that a letter could be hand delivered across the county in a few days for less than the price of a can of soda was once truly amazing. But with the ability now to do the same thing in seconds for free on the Internet 24/7, 365 days a year, one wonders how the USPS expects to compete with a five-day business model.
The answer is simple: It won’t. CV
