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That is exactly how SmartPost (and UPS' SurePost) works. It really is magnificently expensive to do the last mile, and economies of scale really matter. The USP

That is exactly how SmartPost (and UPS' SurePost) works. It really is magnificently expensive to do the last mile, and economies of scale really matter. The USPS has the last mile down like no other company in the country, and so for items that fit within the USPS dimensional categories, it is often less expensive for it to go through the USPS' last mile than it is to add delivery density to their own last mile.

toomuchtodo 12y ago
So Amazon may save the USPS. Interesting!
- ewzimm 12y ago
  It's pretty ironic that public representatives in Congress have been working so hard to shut down the USPS under the assumption that private business can do a better job while private business has been taking advantage of the USPS's efficiency.
  - jonknee 12y ago
    A big part of that "efficiency" is the rules required by Congress (daily mail delivery to everywhere). If it wasn't required it wouldn't be provided and that "efficiency" would go away. Maybe parcels can save them, but it will require a lot of change because unlike the junk mail that currently keeps the lights [halfway] on, packages take up quite a bit of space. I regularly see UPS unloading more packages for a single building than would fit in a mail truck.
    - ewzimm 12y ago
      Yes, the rules established by Congress in 1792. I don't think anyone would argue that organization has much in common with the current Congress. No organization in the world other than the USPS is forced to pre-fund pensions with $5.5 billion annually. Imagine if Amazon.com had to play by those rules. Also, I'm not convinced by your argument that a $66 billion/year organization is going to fail because their trucks aren't big enough. The USPS actually carries a lot of packages for UPS and FedEx.
      - toomuchtodo 12y ago
        Fedex also carries most of express/priority mail for USPS: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-23/fedex-to-fly-mail-for-postal-service-for-10-5-billion.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-23/fedex-to-fly-mail-f...
  - r00fus 12y ago
    It highlights the fact that some public representatives are really privately sponsored/employed (stock options in blind trust, revolving doors, flights and ). Who do these representatives actually represent?
    - ewzimm 12y ago
      They obviously don't represent workers. The USPS is one of the last big organizations where normal people can expect to have a retirement plan, even if they're disabled. In February, 250 UPS workers walked out for 90 minutes to protest an unjust firing. UPS told them to keep coming to work, but every week they would randomly fire 20 of them until everyone was gone to give the company time to replace them. After months of campaigning against it, the workers got off with 2 weeks' suspension for what they maintain was a legal protest. But the incident is indicative of what we might expect in a completely privatized parcel delivery industry. If the workers hadn't been unionized Teamsters, UPS would have probably gotten their way. This is the kind of working environment a lot of people in Congress are pushing for. http://www.businessinsider.com/ups-reverses-firing-of-250-workers-2014-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/ups-reverses-firing-of-250-wo...
- matthewarkin 12y ago
  Amazon has also been partnering with USPS to offer Sunday deliveries.
enobrev 12y ago
Interesting article, thanks for that. An anecdotal addition, but FedEx SmartPost can be incredibly annoying depending on how well the local PO works. In some instances, FedEx tracking would mark a package as "delivered" when it was just dropped it off at the local post office. When I was living in Brooklyn, this basically meant I was going to get a pink slip on my mail box within the next 3 days (even though I work from home, they NEVER rang the bell). And since, apparently, none of the local carriers were delivering packages in the neighborhood, this meant I was going to have to wait in a line of disgruntled neighbors with pink slips dangling from clenched fists for at least half an hour and often twice that. Because of this, I would generally avoid FedEx when it was an option. I believe UPS does this as well with some category of their service, but I haven't dealt with it in my own experience. I don't mean to say that all of USPS is broken. I'm generally impressed by the system as a whole. When I was living in Seattle, the service was superb, and now that I'm in Chicago, it's somewhere in between. I'm just saying that the service isn't necessarily consistent, and has, in the past, led me to find other options.
- fibonachos 12y ago
  SmartPost is a risky proposition for online sellers like the one I work for. Feedback is important, and a couple negatives at the top of [popular review site] can hurt for a while. Looking at ours, there are some legitimate screw ups in there, but 4 out of 5 negatives are slow shipping complaints, all of which can be attributed to the local PO sitting on the package for 2-3 days before sending it out for delivery.
  - amputect 12y ago
    Agreed. Heck, I cancelled my Amazon Prime subscription because of SmartPost. I don't do that much shopping online anyway, and the free two-day shipping was consistently actually 3-5 day shipping.
- lobster_johnson 12y ago
  Brooklyn resident here, USPS itself also does that, and it's worse: They will pretend to deliver and mark the tracking status as "delivery attempted, customer not home". It has happened on numerous occasions that I have been home the entire day, and it's obvious that they never came by. I used to live in Norway, where the exact same thing went on: Anything sent from the US via USPS would show as "delivery attempted", but it was the same thing. So my theory is that this is code for "dumped directly at the PO". (Here in NYC I have never once received a delivery slip from the USPS. Which is frustrating, because it means you have to remember to check the tracking status every now and then to see if you should go to the post office.)

toomuchtodo 12y ago

So Amazon may save the USPS. Interesting!

ewzimm 12y ago
It's pretty ironic that public representatives in Congress have been working so hard to shut down the USPS under the assumption that private business can do a better job while private business has been taking advantage of the USPS's efficiency.
- jonknee 12y ago
  A big part of that "efficiency" is the rules required by Congress (daily mail delivery to everywhere). If it wasn't required it wouldn't be provided and that "efficiency" would go away. Maybe parcels can save them, but it will require a lot of change because unlike the junk mail that currently keeps the lights [halfway] on, packages take up quite a bit of space. I regularly see UPS unloading more packages for a single building than would fit in a mail truck.
  - ewzimm 12y ago
    Yes, the rules established by Congress in 1792. I don't think anyone would argue that organization has much in common with the current Congress. No organization in the world other than the USPS is forced to pre-fund pensions with $5.5 billion annually. Imagine if Amazon.com had to play by those rules. Also, I'm not convinced by your argument that a $66 billion/year organization is going to fail because their trucks aren't big enough. The USPS actually carries a lot of packages for UPS and FedEx.
    - toomuchtodo 12y ago
      Fedex also carries most of express/priority mail for USPS: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-23/fedex-to-fly-mail-for-postal-service-for-10-5-billion.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-23/fedex-to-fly-mail-f...
- r00fus 12y ago
  It highlights the fact that some public representatives are really privately sponsored/employed (stock options in blind trust, revolving doors, flights and ). Who do these representatives actually represent?
  - ewzimm 12y ago
    They obviously don't represent workers. The USPS is one of the last big organizations where normal people can expect to have a retirement plan, even if they're disabled. In February, 250 UPS workers walked out for 90 minutes to protest an unjust firing. UPS told them to keep coming to work, but every week they would randomly fire 20 of them until everyone was gone to give the company time to replace them. After months of campaigning against it, the workers got off with 2 weeks' suspension for what they maintain was a legal protest. But the incident is indicative of what we might expect in a completely privatized parcel delivery industry. If the workers hadn't been unionized Teamsters, UPS would have probably gotten their way. This is the kind of working environment a lot of people in Congress are pushing for. http://www.businessinsider.com/ups-reverses-firing-of-250-workers-2014-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/ups-reverses-firing-of-250-wo...
matthewarkin 12y ago
Amazon has also been partnering with USPS to offer Sunday deliveries.

enobrev 12y ago

Interesting article, thanks for that. An anecdotal addition, but FedEx SmartPost can be incredibly annoying depending on how well the local PO works. In some instances, FedEx tracking would mark a package as "delivered" when it was just dropped it off at the local post office. When I was living in Brooklyn, this basically meant I was going to get a pink slip on my mail box within the next 3 days (even though I work from home, they NEVER rang the bell). And since, apparently, none of the local carriers were delivering packages in the neighborhood, this meant I was going to have to wait in a line of disgruntled neighbors with pink slips dangling from clenched fists for at least half an hour and often twice that. Because of this, I would generally avoid FedEx when it was an option. I believe UPS does this as well with some category of their service, but I haven't dealt with it in my own experience. I don't mean to say that all of USPS is broken. I'm generally impressed by the system as a whole. When I was living in Seattle, the service was superb, and now that I'm in Chicago, it's somewhere in between. I'm just saying that the service isn't necessarily consistent, and has, in the past, led me to find other options.

fibonachos 12y ago
SmartPost is a risky proposition for online sellers like the one I work for. Feedback is important, and a couple negatives at the top of [popular review site] can hurt for a while. Looking at ours, there are some legitimate screw ups in there, but 4 out of 5 negatives are slow shipping complaints, all of which can be attributed to the local PO sitting on the package for 2-3 days before sending it out for delivery.
- amputect 12y ago
  Agreed. Heck, I cancelled my Amazon Prime subscription because of SmartPost. I don't do that much shopping online anyway, and the free two-day shipping was consistently actually 3-5 day shipping.
lobster_johnson 12y ago
Brooklyn resident here, USPS itself also does that, and it's worse: They will pretend to deliver and mark the tracking status as "delivery attempted, customer not home". It has happened on numerous occasions that I have been home the entire day, and it's obvious that they never came by. I used to live in Norway, where the exact same thing went on: Anything sent from the US via USPS would show as "delivery attempted", but it was the same thing. So my theory is that this is code for "dumped directly at the PO". (Here in NYC I have never once received a delivery slip from the USPS. Which is frustrating, because it means you have to remember to check the tracking status every now and then to see if you should go to the post office.)