BY MARK B. SOLOMON, SENIOR EDITOR
PARCEL EXPRESS
transportationreport
IF THE U.S. POSTAL SERVICE (USPS) FINDS ITSELF NOT READY FOR
e-commerce prime time, it won’t be for lack of effort or imagination.
After many months of planning, USPS in early August took the wraps off
the most ambitious remake of its “Priority Mail” delivery service in more than
three decades. The initiative is the Postal Service’s boldest step yet to frame its
future as the primary shipping conduit of online commerce instead of as the
share-draining monopoly carrier of the nation’s first-class mail.
For the first time, Priority Mail users are able to select a day-definite delivery, whether it be one, two, or three days out. USPS will offer free shipment
tracking and free packaging, as well as free insurance coverage of up to $50 or
$100 a shipment, depending on how the order is placed. Shipping rates, at
least for now, will remain the same. USPS’s long-time overnight-delivery service, “Express Mail,” has been rebranded “Priority Mail Express,” ostensibly to
get the public and the shipping community accustomed to the name.
By bundling transport, tracking, insurance, and packaging into one rate,
USPS is trying to position itself as the value proposition of choice for the
growing number of e-merchants that lack the volume clout of a goliath like
Amazon.com. It signals USPS’s clear intention to skim off short-haul, light-
The Postal Service’s
revamp of Priority
Mail signals a serious
push to dominate
e-commerce deliveries
and to chart its
course for the
decades to come.
Mailing
in the future
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