Friday, May 28, 2010

A sign of the times?

First-Class Mail volume has dropped signficiantly in the last two years. Much of the decline has been due to the increase in electronic billing.

What do you think about the loss of this volume? Will it taper off? Will it continue? How should the Post Office react?

Click here to give your opinion.



















Photo Credit: Marcy Earley

11 comments:

Chanya Cook said...

To Improve Our Service !!!
We should add Delivery Confirmation
or some similar service for regular letter, large envelope of
1st class mails....to just prove of delivery...and of course post office get more money for these extra service
...at least 80 cents per pcs..
and no need receiver to sign for...

As sometimes customer doesn't want to pay $2.80 for certified...

Anonymous said...

April 20th 2010 via Federal Times
Paper retirement benefits checks and savings bonds soon will become a thing of the past, for federal employees and all other government beneficiaries, under a new e-government initiative announced Monday.

Switching from paper to electronic transactions will save more than $400 million and 12 million pounds of paper during the first five years alone, the Treasury Department said.

The change affects civil service retirement, Social Security, supplemental security income, veterans and railroad retirement beneficiaries. Recipients will receive their benefits either through direct deposit into a bank account or through Treasury's Direct Express debit card. The change will apply to new beneficiaries starting March 1, 2011, and to existing recipients beginning March 1, 2013.

"By moving to all-electronic payments, Treasury will save hundreds of millions of dollars and substantially reduce our environmental impact, making this a win-win for all Americans," Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said.

Currently, 85 percent of federal benefit recipients receive their payments electronically.

In addition, Treasury will eliminate the option to purchase paper savings bonds through payroll deductions for federal employees beginning Sept. 30 and for private-sector employees by Jan. 1. Future transactions will only be made through Treasury Direct, a Web-based system that allows employees to buy and hold electronic savings bonds.

Paper savings bonds still will be offered for sale at most banks.

Another decline in volume.

Anonymous said...

Ideas for USPS:
Advertising !
Service FOR the Customer.
Survey the public:
Ask THEM what THEY want.
Be open 6 days a wek for service.
Internet orders ARE UP !!!!!!
RR 17 D.Carey Hudson Station
Modesto, Ca.

Anonymous said...

First Class volume will continue to decline. I love the idea of Delivery Confirmation for First Class letters and flats. Many of my customers request it and would be willing to pay .80 for the service rather than $2.80 for Certified.

Anonymous said...

Reduce Upper management - do we really need so many MPOOS and upper ups? Redo the UNION laws - so we can fire the dead beat workers. It amazing how much we pay to fire someone only to have to get them back becasue of the UNIONS. We cannot get the mail delivered timely because of all the UNION's stupid rules.
YES on DC on first class mail!

Merk said...

Yes, more mail will be diverted to electronic delivery. The Postal Service needs to get onboard using that instead of cutting, cutting, cutting. We should be offering "hybrid" mail (the sender sends it electronically to a post office where it is printed & delivered, thus a hard copy that is send in minutes) and we should be the ones offering electronic mailboxes, such as Zumbox and Earth Mail. We're taking the right step in promoting our services for delivery and return of merchandise bought online but we need to push that more. I also agree to DelCon for First Class letters & flats. Sure it may end up in DPS but carriers should know by now what the bright green labels are & that they need to scan barcodes. Or machines could be fitted to "reject" those labels to be placed in manually sorted mail.

Anonymous said...

Personally, I think people put way too much trust in the internet; paying all their bills online may just come back to bite them one day!! Too much identity theft occurs from the internet; the mail is safer.

Maybe we should promote that!!

Anonymous said...

I don't track peices by class, but my DPS was only down 2% from SPLY during my mid year review. So I can't say I see a significant drop...but it is invetable I think.

Anonymous said...

Right now identity theft is high and there are too many securtiy breaches via the internet.....but once they get that more secure...I think internet banking, shopping online, and bill paying will increase.

Unknown said...

I'm amazed at how many of my co workers are using electronic bill pay ! All they are doing is cutting their own throats and every other postal employee. It should be mandatory that if you work for the postal service, you don't use electronic bill pay! Its just common sense.

Anonymous said...

Electronic bill pay is inevitable. I, too believe that the internet is not as secure as we'd like it to be. I also agree that some of the higher paid employees could be downsized a bit. These are hard times for each of us as Americans and as USPS employees. I can see a decline in service just in our little neck of the woods. My hope is that things will start looking up very soon!