Wednesday Update:
Wow. Thanks for the fabulous response to the brainstorm. We’ve been overwhelmed by the sheer number of thoughtful responses. To give everyone enough time to comment and us a little time to read through everything, we’ve decided to extend the period for taking comments and post a blog about the brainstorm with the poll on Monday. Until then, please keep sharing your ideas. All suggestions received by Friday morning will be candidates for the poll.
Oh, a word about moderation, we moderate every comment, and our policy is not to include comments that include vulgar words (even if the words are partially obscured with other characters) or involve name calling. We have not been able to approve a few comments that were otherwise very interesting because they violated our comment policy, so please double check your comment before you submit it.
Thanks again!
Original Post:
The Postal Service is facing a financial crisis and needs to pursue every option it can to improve its net income. Pushing the Envelope thought it might be a good idea to ask for your thoughts. How do you think the Postal Service can save money or raise additional revenue?
To make this a bit more interesting, the blog team will review your ideas and pick the most popular or most interesting for a poll. We’ll post the poll on Wednesday. So brainstorm now, and be sure to come back on Wednesday to view the shortlist and to vote for your favorites.
Share your ideas in the comments below. Describe the idea, whether it involves cutting costs or generating revenue, and how much you think it could add to the Postal Service’s bottom line. Happy brainstorming!
This topic is hosted by the OIG’s Risk Analysis Research Center (RARC).
527 Comments
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It was a beneficial workout for me to go through your webpage. It definitely stretches the limits with the mind when you go through very good info and make an effort to interpret it properly. I am going to glance up this web site usually on my PC. Thanks for sharing
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How about if post offices were opened every other day to save on overheads?
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I’ve been a rural carrier for 7 years with the last 4 months as a 204b. Almost everyone in the postal service works harder and more efficiently than in any other business I’ve worked in (including non profits, superior courts, albertons, hospitality, and private business). The supervisors and postmasters are necessary and most are just trying to do what they’re told and get the results HQ wants. And therein lies the problem. Most upper level management are so far removed from craft that they do not even realize that they are implementing procedures that are archaic and getting results that are not acheiving their goals. Many of the ideas I read here were ones I have thought and can prove will work. Here are ones involving shipping since that’s what we do:
1. Implement what so many employees suggested-modern vending machines that work and automatic weight and scan machines that customers can utilize without waiting in line that weigh and/or scan their parcels into the mailstream.
2. Make the scans reflect useful information which can be accessed easily by customers and shippers – isn’t that what they are for. For instance, why are the carriers scanning anything not delivered or notified as Undeliverable as addressed and then leaving clerks to scan them as forwards, no such number, insufficient address or whatever. Even worse carriers don’t have to scan pickups at all so nobody knows when and where the mailpiece enters the mailstream.
3. Let customers and shippers choose whether they want the shipping information accessed easily. Don’t assume, as we do now, that everyone wants that info kept secure. They don’t-they all want to be able to access their information easily. Let them opt in or out of privacy at the time they pay. It wastes an enormous amount of time for customers, shippers, carriers, and supervisors to wade through the process of finding out what’s really happened to their shipment.
4. (And I’ll stop here but the list is endless). Figure out what everyone wants and give it to them if you can. Customers want accurate and simple to understand info showing exactly how they can benefit from USPS. Let people pay bills through usps with cash for a $1.00 fee and have it posted immediately to their account (I call it imail with each participating company having a scan mark like an eye).
Finally it’s important to note that there is a small window of opportunity before other companies or agencies provide what we cannot and become the communication link between people, business, and government that we are supposed to be. Thank you.
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An Internet Postal Portal: “If you cannot beat em’, join em’!”
Most people agree that the internet, specifically e-mail and online bill paying have significantly reduced the volume of first class mail. Even periodicals have taken a hit; more people are getting their news online and subscribing to online magazines and trade journals. My proposal would be to merge the two worlds (Internet and Post Office) into an online portal and here is how I suggest we do it!
1. Post Office E-mail: Microsoft, Yahoo and Google are leaders in free personal e-mail services. How do they make money? Advertising! Why not create such a service for postal customers? How about yourname@mypostoffice.com for example.
2. Online Periodical Subscriptions: As said before many people are getting their news and digital magazines and newspapers at home or work on their computer completely bypassing the use of mail. I believe there is a two faceted approach to this conundrum.
First, take hint from companies like Magazines.com that make a commission by being a third part to ordering magazine subscriptions by mail. Second, take the same approach to newspapers and trade journals. Last, partner with the periodical companies to act as a commission based vendor for online subscriptions. People really do pay to read periodicals such as the Wall Street Journal or National Geographic online. Imagine a portal where you have consolidated online subscription access all in one place!
3. Online Shopping Partnership: The Post Office has already got on the band wagon with EBay and PayPal to incorporate Postal shipping into their websites. Why not take an aggressive approach to partner with the five biggest online retailers; Amazon, Dell, Office Depot, Staples and HPDirect. There are thousands of online retailers up for grabs!
4. Incorporate existing USPS.com services with the portal. You can already track a package from the Postal website. Imagine someone being able to buy a book from Amazon.com, ship through the Post Office and get shipping alerts sent to their Postal e-mail address. That’s creating multiple sources of revenue from one transaction!
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An Internet Postal Portal: “If you cannot beat em’, join em’!”
Most people agree that the internet, specifically e-mail and online bill paying have significantly reduced the volume of first class mail. Even periodicals have taken a hit; more people
are getting their news online and subscribing to online magazines and trade journals. My proposal would be to merge the two worlds (Internet and Post Office) into an online portal and here is how
I suggest we do it!
1. Post Office E-mail: Microsoft, Yahoo and Google are leaders in free personal e-mail services. How do they make money? Advertising! Why not create such a service for postal customers? How about yourname@mypostoffice.com for example.
2. Online Periodical Subscriptions: As said before many people are getting their news and digital magazines and newspapers at home or work on their computer completely bypassing the use of mail. I believe there is a two faceted approach to this conundrum.
First, take hint from companies like Magazines.com that make a commission by being a third part to ordering magazine subscriptions by mail. Second, take the same approach to newspapers and trade journals. Last, partner with the periodical companies to act as a commission based vendor for online subscriptions. People really do pay to read periodicals such
as the Wall Street Journal or National Geographic online. Imagine a portal where you have consolidated online subscription access all in one place!
3. Online Shopping Partnership: The Post Office has already got on the band wagon with EBay and PayPal to incorporate Postal shipping into their websites. Why not take an aggressive approach to partner with the five biggest online retailers; Amazon, Dell,
Office Depot, Staples and HPDirect. There are thousands of online retailers up for grabs!
4. Incorporate existing USPS.com services with the portal. You can already track a package from the Postal website. Imagine someone being able to buy a book from Amazon.com, ship through the Post Office and get shipping alerts sent to their Postal
e-mail address. You can also already rent a PO BOX from the website,imagine being able to get payment notices in your Postal email.That’s creating multiple sources of revenue from one transaction!
We can no longer “stay the course”. A drastic change in services is the only option. You cannot convince e-mailers to go back to mailing cards or online bill payers to go back to writing checks and mailing them. Sorry to deflate the Postal ego, but regular old mail is turning old fashioned… as an analogy it’s like trying to keep a person who buys DVD’s to go back and buy your cassette tapes. We have to compete with these new and superior conveniences by providing these superior conveniences!
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1. Have mailing kiosks at airports next to screeners. When an object is not allowed onboard, it can be placed in prepaid boxes to send items back home. A small, medium, large container would be enough choices.
2. All neighborhoods will have a central mailbox cluster like apartments/condos do. This will allow one carrier the ability to deliver to dozens of addresses in one spot. Oversize packages go in locked bins with the key being placed in the homeowner’s box.
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Here are some reality numbers… It may sting a bit
though….
Increase the current practice of sending casual employees home 25 clicks early after they did the 7.75 hrs of work of two or or more unavailable regular employees.
Since the USPS lost $8.5 Billion $8,500,000,000;
near illustration below….
http://www.rimmkaufman.com/rkgblog/2008/12/20/what-eight-hundred-billion-dollars-looks-like/
The potential savings on this regular practice could
erase last years fiscal loss, if performed a total of
1,942,857,143 times over the next 40 years. Assuming a 20K year round casual compliment.
BTW (it really helps to see the attached link).
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Stop paying bonuses to managers and supervisors.
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Cut back on grievences by holding management accountable for intentionally not following the contracts with unions. Also hold them equally accountable for failures, mistakes, or accidents they may have. It seems that when they screw up, nobody is on their heels with written warnings and threats of termination. Make ALL equal and people will be less likely to create these grievable situations.
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Stop contracting out so much work and saying it save money. I’ve been around a while, I’ve served in the military and ran my own business for several years…I know it’s possible to play with statistics and math to support contracting out, but I also know that it rarely save any money and often ends up costing more in the long run. Management often claims that funds for contracting come out of another pool of money…huh? Isn’t ALL money in the pool property of the USPS? this is the type of thinking that puts us in the hole. ALL spending is bad, so lets try to cut spending and find ways do affordably keep work in house.
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Make all parcels and slugs delivery conformation. Only charge customers when they access delivery results on-line. This would solve a major problem for the USPS; Carriers are told that we don’t scan parcels and customers won’t use the USPS, because, we don’t scan. If every parcel has a bar code that we have to scan, then every paecel will be tracked and this will help the USPS locate lost or stolen packages, saving even more money. And by charging customers for checking status this will generate even more revenue from parcels that today are not tracked at all. By proving that the USPS does scan every parcel we will gain customers from other delivery company’s that are presently considered more reliable. Because we don’t charge at the front end for tracking, and our delivery prices are the cheapest in the world, we should show profits in the Millions if not billions. And therefore retain our jobs which if we don’t become more creative and run more efficiently we will cease to exist.
Edward Fox, 03117539, 9300 Ellen Ct, Thornton Co 80229.
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The Postal Service should get into the hydrogen fuel business.First the PO should convert all its vehicle fleet to hydrogen fuel cell, then open hydrogen fueling station selling hydrogen fuel to the public at many of its facilities around the country. This alone over time would reduce fuel cost and generate new revenue through future service to the public.
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The Postal Service should get into the hydrogen fuel business.First the PO should convert all its vehicle fleet to hydrogen fuel cell, then open hydrogen fueling station selling hydrogen fuel to the public at many of its facilities around the country. This alone over time would reduce fuel cost and generate new revenue through future service to the public.
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Hi,
Have you ever considered collecting old batteries? Batteries are everywhere and hard to recycle as you often have to go considerably out of your way to do so. If life were so simple that all you had to do with old batteries was to leave them in your mailbox and the USPS would take them away and see that they were properly recycled,pretty much everyone would do it and thus have a huge impact. Someone is making money off of recycling batteries, why not the USPS?
Thanks
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great scheme… .it will emphatically lead to all new public-private partnership
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Make Parcel delivery 365 days a year espically on medications, go after after UPS with force and redeliver the next day; unless the customer requests to pick up their parcel. Have a call by 6:15pm same day hotline for pick up. Have a person designated in each office detailed to separate parcels for redelivery or pick up daily with the utmost accuracy and accountable for detail.
Postal service pay for email service which gives their email the same legal protection as regular mail.
To supplement postal service funds have businesses able to advertise on the the postal vehicles based on averaged driver miles on a daily rate tracked and credited if vehicles are in for repair maintenance.
Place a bid to read meters for utility companies to supplement mail delivery. They’ll deliver the utility companies data at a fraction of the price.
Cut salaries at the top. Do away with lush performance bonuses.
Create jobs printing regionally across the US producing mail advertising layouts. Employ print press workers and graphics design employees haul with employees already working in the postal service.
Offer shipping discounts to businesses who sign a contract to exclusively ship with USPS.
Cut manager jobs cut manager pay.
Cut manager health benefits, benefits should be limited to those who perform manual labor.
Get rid of company vehicles for all managers. Do away with per diem for managers. Only move managers within commuting distances by taking advantage of temporary managers to fill vacant manager jobs. Create an all part time manager work force.
Create an incentive bonus to employee who have a good attendance year.
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- Charge for forwarding mail
- Charge for package pick-up at businesses
- Partner with companies to sell goods at Post Offices like tech devices. Older people would buy them vs. going online and there is a good chance at impulse buying (Singapore does this)
- Raise rates for bulk mail
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I would like to suggest that PO split into 2 divisions – one that handles packages with 6 or 7 day deliver.
The other part handles letters. Eliminate Saturday delivery (even to businesses) but PO should be open to accept letters. Also, start eliminating home delivery. Begin with enclosed communities like gated communites and setup a mail drop station at the entrance or within the community. Similar to apartment buildings. This will cut down on time for door to door, same gas, reduce neessary personnel for home delivery, etc. Eventually each street or community should have a mail station to accept letters and average sized packages. It can also have a place where people can mail their letters.
For the personnel that would be affected, offer early retirement to anyone that would quality. Keep the most productive and experience staff anc rotate into the package piece. Expand that area and compete with UPS and FEDEX rate and delivery guarantee.
Run it like a business.
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There seems no reason to have a letter carrier at my front door 6 days a week. It seems to make more sense to reduce the delivery to every other day, and to divide the routes into even and odd, so that alternate days the letter carrier would be on another local route. This way, special deliveries (more$) and box pickups could still be handled. Also, existing boxes and the disabled won’t be singled out. Getting mail 3 days a week delivered just as it always has been seems like a great compromise.
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