{"id":7037,"date":"2014-11-19T09:57:37","date_gmt":"2014-11-19T15:57:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/?p=7037"},"modified":"2023-11-14T21:17:09","modified_gmt":"2023-11-15T03:17:09","slug":"postal-service-delivery-7-daysweek-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/material-handling\/postal-service-delivery-7-daysweek-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"US Postal Service to Delivery 7 Days\/Week Through Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"delivery<\/a>
Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons (in the public domain)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In anticipation of a record number of packages this holiday season, the US Postal Service announced earlier this month that — for the first time ever — it will be making deliveries to homes and businesses in major cities and high volume areas seven days per week until Christmas.<\/p>\n

Every day mail delivery began Monday and will continue until Christmas \u00a0Day. The move comes in response to a growing demand for home package delivery due to the rise of online retail shopping.<\/p>\n

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said the decision to provide seven day delivery to many customers reflects the Postal Service’s commitment to responding to changes in demand.<\/p>\n

“The Postal Service will be out making deliveries every single day during the holiday season, including Christmas Day,” Donahoe said in a USPS news release<\/a>. “During the holidays, no carrier makes more deliveries to more places than the Postal Service. And this year, we’re raising the bar with enhanced tracking and Sunday delivery.”<\/p>\n

Anticipating Record Volume<\/strong><\/p>\n

The enormous surge in web-based retailing is expected to result in double-digit growth in the Postal Service’s package deliveries this holiday season, jumping to an anticipated 450 million to 470 million packages, a 12% increase over 2013.<\/p>\n

“Every household in America relies on us to get their packages in time for the holidays,” Donahoe said. “And we take great pride in taking on that responsibility. We’re prepared to do whatever it takes to deliver for our customers.”<\/p>\n

The Postal Services two main competitors — FedEx and UPS — have not announced plans to offer Sunday delivery, although both expect increased volume this holiday season.<\/p>\n

FedEx, UPS Also Preparing\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last month, FedEx predicted it would deliver more than 290 million packages between Friday, November 28 — also known as Black Friday, the busy shopping day after Thanksgiving –and Christmas Eve. That would be an 8.8% increase over the previous year.<\/p>\n

And UPS officials have said the package delivery service expects an 11% annual increase in volume over last year. Last holiday season, UPS was widely criticized for its inability to keep up with holiday demand. But the company recently invested an additional $175 million<\/a> to upgrade its operations and another $500 billion on new capital expenditures.<\/p>\n

Rob Martinez — president and CEO of Shipware Systems Corp, a San Diego-based consulting firm that specializes in the parcel industry — said the Postal Service’s move to delivery seven days per week was essentially its only hope of survival.<\/p>\n

USPS Seeks to Remain Competitive<\/strong><\/p>\n

“While seven day a week delivery between Thanksgiving and Christmas certainly is an advantage over the private carriers offer five day a week delivery, the Postal Service really has no choice,” Martinez told Logistics Management<\/a>. \u00a0“Without the additional delivery days, it would almost certainly fall behind. Once you do, it’s very difficult to catch back up. Saturday and Sunday deliveries were a very important part of their package delivery strategy last December.”<\/p>\n

While its competitors recently announced price increases<\/a>, the Postal Service lowered its prices<\/a> for businesses and frequent shippers, a move that is expected to drive even more volume.<\/p>\n

“I just hope that it is prepared to handle those volumes in order to avoid a public relations fiasco,” Martinez said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In anticipation of a record number of packages this holiday season, the US Postal Service announced earlier this month that — for the first time ever — it will be making deliveries to homes and businesses in major cities and high volume areas seven days per week until Christmas. Every day mail delivery began Monday … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,293],"tags":[976,1079],"class_list":["post-7037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-material-handling","category-news","tag-featured","tag-material-handling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7037"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12427,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7037\/revisions\/12427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}