USPS 5-Day Delivery Proposal

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. Unless of course there is a nearly $7 billion loss in profits. In that case, all bets are off.

On March 30^th, The United States Postal Service submitted its five-day delivery proposal to its regulator, The Postal Regulatory Commission, in an effort to close the gap on the loss trend that began in 2008. According to the USPS, this plan will save a projected $3.8 billion annually.

The Commission will review and provide its input by June 30^th. Some of the key points include:

• Mail will neither be delivered to street addresses nor picked up from blue boxes on Saturday.
• Post Offices will remain open on Saturday for counter service.
• PO Box and Express Mail delivery will carry on as they do today.
• Saturday and Sunday bulk mail acceptance will continue, but with possible reduced hours of operation.
• Any mail submitted to the USPS on Saturday will be processed on Monday.
• The plan could commence as early as the start of the 2011 fiscal year.

If approved, the three- to five-day delivery window could expand to as much as five to seven days, which could both reduce delivery time and lengthen response time to direct mail packages, negatively impacting fundraising organizations’ cash flow.

While the need for USPS reform is not disputed, the move to cut service is, especially when considering the bigger picture. This plan only accounts for 5% of the entire budget deficit, so the USPS will still need to explore additional cost saving measures, such as additional postage increases and labor cuts. For example, there are more than 35,000 post offices across the United States—more than Walmart, Starbucks, and McDonald’s combined— and each one only sees 600 customers a day on average. It is becoming clear that a plan to cut delivery service is only scratching the surface of a much larger issue.