San Jose, CA — Who doesn’t like one-stop shopping? The U.S. Postal Service and Staples have launched a pilot program where postal services retail counters will be inside select Staples locations, including Staples at 121 Bernal Road, San Jose, CA 95119, where a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held today.

Staples, Inc, (Nasdaq: SPLS), the largest office products company and second largest internet retailer, is the first retailer to take part in a USPS pilot program dubbed the Retail Partner Expansion Program.

The Retail Partner Expansion Program is a pilot designed around a few simple ideas — service, convenience and providing options to customers. The first of its kind, the USPS/Staples program offers access to postal products and services inside select local Staples stores. Once inside, customers will find a familiar looking counter resembling a mini post office containing the most popular postal products and services.

The postal products available in the San Jose Staples stores include stamps, First-Class Domestic and International Mail and package services, Priority Mail, Priority Mail Express, Domestic and International, Global Express Guaranteed and Standard Post. Staples associates are fully trained to assist in all these services.

San Jose Postmaster Sam Vasquez explained, “By offering postal products and services at Staples, customers have an additional option and access to postal services — at a time that may well be more convenient for them seven days per week — now that is a perfect reason to celebrate.”

“At Staples, we make it easy with more ways than ever for customers to shop for everything their business needs to succeed,” said Bryan Timko, Vice President of New Business Development, Staples. “The pilot program with USPS is just another great way to help our customers with mailing and shipping right from our stores.”

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A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation: 152 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. With more than 31,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, usps.com, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $65 billion and delivers nearly 40 percent of the world's mail. If it were a private-sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 42nd in the 2012 Fortune 500. The Postal Service has been named the Most Trusted Government Agency for seven years and the fourth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute.

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