As shipping and package volumes and revenues continue their impressive growth, the Postal Service has taken steps to simplify products, offer people more control over where, when and how they receive packages, and provide superior labeling, manifesting and payment solutions.
Priority Mail Pricing – The Postal Service increased Priority Mail prices 9.8 percent in FY2016, after three years of no net increase. This increase better aligned our offerings in the marketplace and improved contribution, while maintaining Priority Mail’s popularity with customers. Unlike others in the shipping industry, the Postal Service did not implement any new dimensional weight changes. When customers ship with Priority Mail, they get free insurance, expected delivery day and Flat Rate and Regional Rate packaging options. Priority Mail is one of the Postal Service’s most popular shipping products, helping to boost the Postal Service’s package volume and meet customers’ needs for convenience at competitive prices.
Dynamic Routing and Sunday Delivery – To continue meeting the needs of today’s consumers, the Postal Service increased package delivery from six days per week to include Sunday in select ZIP Codes. During FY2016, the Postal Service has increased Sunday delivered ZIPs from 8,287 to 9,369. All totaled, USPS delivered over 111 million packages on Sunday to homes, businesses and Post Office Boxes this year.
Package Pickup – We not only deliver to every address — we also will pick up packages from those same addresses. To improve convenience, more USPS shipping products now can be picked up from customers’ homes and offices through our free Package Pickup service. Customers go online to usps.com to request that their carriers pick up their packages during regular delivery the next business day. Additionally, we are now offering Ship from Store. Several major retailers now utilize the Postal Service to pick up their fulfillment orders from local stores for same or next day delivery. During FY2016, the Postal Service has collected and delivered approximately 1.7 million packages in this initiative.
Metro Post – The market test product, which was introduced in 2012 in San Francisco, enabled consumers to receive same-day delivery on packages ordered from participating retailers before 2 p.m. In FY2015, the Postal Service delivered nearly 162,000 Metro Post packages to consumers and businesses in the New York metro market.
The Postal Service ended the market test for Metro Post same-day delivery on Dec. 16, 2015. The market test duration was two years. Qualified customers were moved to a Negotiated Service Agreement. The new name of the service will be Priority Mail Metro Post Same Day.
Returns – In 2016, Parcel Return Service (PRS) customers were able to pick up their PRS volumes at 8,841 Return Delivery Units (RDUs). While this total represents a reduction in RDUs compared to the previous fiscal year, the Postal Service is in the process of expanding the number of RDUs based on recent requests from both existing and new PRS customers.
Parcel Lockers – We continue to better service the needs of our package receiving customers. In FY2016, we added 1,782 indoor parcel lockers to enable customers to easily pick up a package when they have PO Box delivery.
The Postal Service continues to test our outdoor keyless parcel locker, gopost, in the Northern Virginia and New York City areas. Gopost is a convenient way to receive and ship packages. Our gopost units are automated, secure, self-service parcel lockers that are placed in convenient locations, where customers can pick up or ship packages 24 hours a day, seven days a week at most locations. Customers who sign up for gopost receive user ID cards and PIN numbers which they can then use to access lockers and retrieve or send packages. In FY2016, the program added three new gopost locations in the New York City vicinity.
