Technology keeps reshaping Postal Service
The competition starting heating up for the Postal Service in the 1990s, when the Internet and e-mail became a household feature and private package delivery services started becoming more popular, such as UPS, FedEx and DHL.
USPS has kept up with its competition by offering more convenient services like Click-and-Ship, where postage can be paid for and shipping labels printed from your home computer. The package can be picked up at your home with free delivery confirmation letting the sender track the package, says Antonio Ruiz, Sebastian Post Office Officer-in-Charge.
A reduction in business, especially its core product or single-piece first-class mail and a slowing in growth of all first-class mail, Breckenridge says, also made the USPS review its business strategies.
Reasons for dwindling Post Office business includes many new and convenient features that computers offer, such as:
• personal bill pay, i.e. a lot fewer bills traveling through “snail” mail;
• online banking and bank statements, i.e. a lot fewer bank statements and other banking correspondence in the mail;
• other statements being offered through e-mail, i.e. insurance;
• Internet shopping, i.e. merchandise comes directly from a store or manufacturer, eliminating the need to be sent via mail from person-to-person
• and e-mail, i.e. a lot fewer hand-written letters and cards.
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