When faced with declining sales, probably about the worst thing that a business can do is raise its prices. If people are less inclined to buy your product or use your services, ratcheting up your rates is a strategy that will drive you into failure.
But that is exactly what the Post Office is doing.
Does this make economic sense to anyone? Don't they realize that this only gives more people an incentive to go paperless? The credit card issuers are more than happy to send out e-statements and they're ecstatic if people pay directly, rather than by paper check.
It will soon get to the point that the only thing arriving in the mail will be junk mail; the stuff that hardly anyone looks at and which goes right to the recycle/garbage bin.
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3 comments:
The problem is that the USPS gets the vast bulk of its revenue from Bulk mail, not 1st class. Home delivery is a loss leader, effectively.
But businesses won't put up with a rate increase for 3rd class mail, even though they are spending more than ever on advertising. So that leaves the PO between a rock and a hard place.
And we, as a country, don't want to privatize mail delivery, as it would leave many rural communities out in the cold.
Eventually, home delived mail will be a thing of the past. But I don't expect that before about 2040.
I just want to keep getting my NetFlix deliveries - otherwise I would remove the mailbox from the front of my house.
Dear Miss Fit:
I have no problem with the USPS raising First Class rates; compared to rates in other countries, we in the US get quite a bargain.
What I do have a problem with is the decline in reliability that seems to be ever more prevalent with the passage of time.
Remember when, in the years of our respective mis-spent youths, the deposit of a letter in the mailbox was tantamount to handing it to the addressee? There was no doubt whatsoever that it would be delivered in due course.
Recently, after a number of unfortunate incidents, we made a concerted effort at our place of business to establish electronic payment protocols for all of our major vendors because USPS kept losing the checks that we sent in payment of our obligations. Up with this we cannot put.
So if they want to charge 60 or 70 cents for a 1st Class stamp - fine; just couple that with a return to the level of confidence in timely delivery with which we grew up.
Regards,
Frank
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