General Discussion

FarCenter

(19,429 posts) Wed Dec 20, 2017, 05:33 PM Dec 2017

Online shopping is overloading the US Postal Service

The holidays are the US Postal Service’s busiest time of the year; it expects to ship more than 850 million packages between Thanksgiving 2017 and New Year’s Day 2018.

The hustle is getting worse thanks to an online shopping season thats beginning increasingly earlier each year, according to the USPS. In 2012, the postal service expected to ship just 365 million packages during the holiday season. Despite the massive increase in holiday packages handled, the organization’s workforce actually shrunk by 20,000 full-time workers since 2012 to a total of 508,000 in 2016. Even including seasonal contract workers—the USPS expected to hire 35,000-40,000 last year—the growth rate of number of packages far outpaces postal manpower.

https://qz.com/1160861/online-shopping-is-overloading-the-us-postal-service/

7 replies

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Highlight:

Online shopping is overloading the US Postal Service (Original Post) FarCenter Dec 2017 OP

You just know that the rates charged to UPS and Fed Ex exboyfil Dec 2017 #1

my poor mail man was seen delivering just regular mail at 11pm last night BoneyardDem Dec 2017 #2

Mine went up the street at 6 am today. n/t FSogol Dec 2017 #6

All that online money being diverted from our local communities Blues Heron Dec 2017 #3

USPS has also been . . . peggysue2 Dec 2017 #4

I'm not sure who it was -- rsdsharp Dec 2017 #5

As an online seller crazycatlady Dec 2017 #7

exboyfil

(17,865 posts)

1. You just know that the rates charged to UPS and Fed Ex

Reply to FarCenter (Original post)

Wed Dec 20, 2017, 05:36 PM

Dec 2017

for the door to door delivery are not sufficient to justify taking those contracts.

BoneyardDem

(1,202 posts)

2. my poor mail man was seen delivering just regular mail at 11pm last night

Reply to FarCenter (Original post)

Wed Dec 20, 2017, 05:37 PM

Dec 2017

FSogol

(45,524 posts)

6. Mine went up the street at 6 am today. n/t

Reply to BoneyardDem (Reply #2)

Wed Dec 20, 2017, 05:52 PM

Dec 2017

Blues Heron

(5,939 posts)

3. All that online money being diverted from our local communities

Reply to FarCenter (Original post)

Wed Dec 20, 2017, 05:45 PM

Dec 2017

The net's been a game changer that's for sure.

peggysue2

(10,839 posts)

4. USPS has also been . . .

Reply to FarCenter (Original post)

Wed Dec 20, 2017, 05:49 PM

Dec 2017

delivering on Sundays. The Fed-Ex packages from yesterday came in a Budget Truck. And I think I read one of the carrier lines had workers threatening to sue over 70 hour work loads.

It's nuts out there.

rsdsharp

(9,196 posts)

5. I'm not sure who it was --

Reply to peggysue2 (Reply #4)

Wed Dec 20, 2017, 05:51 PM

Dec 2017

USPS, UPS or Fed-Ex, but we had a package dropped on our front porch last Sunday.

It is nuts out there.

crazycatlady

(4,492 posts)

7. As an online seller

Reply to FarCenter (Original post)

Wed Dec 20, 2017, 06:01 PM

Dec 2017

I spend way too much $$ on postage (passed along to customers).

Amazon Prime has completely distorted shipping costs for people. Everyone wants free shipping. However, small scale sellers don't have the negotiating power with the USPS that a giant like Amazon has.

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