News about disappearing collection boxes is everywhere these days. Even BBC News ran a story on the decline of the blue collection box in the United States.
The Postal Service argues that picking up mail from collection boxes is expensive. Removing underused boxes is a cost savings move and a reasonable response to the economic crisis. The Postal Service is removing boxes with less than 25 stamped mail pieces per day.
Critics wonder if there is adequate analysis to support the 25-piece minimum and whether one reason for removing collection boxes — in addition to the minimal cost savings — is that the Postal Service does not want to be criticized for poor service. Fewer boxes mean fewer opportunities to miss a collection or to pick up mail too early.
Is the Postal Service thinking too narrowly and missing some of the value of collection boxes? The ubiquitous presence of the boxes is free advertising for the ailing agency. How much would a private sector company pay to be allowed to put a collection box anywhere it wanted to in the country? Millions? Billions?
What do you think? Is removing collection boxes a reasonable cost-cutting move or a strategic mistake that the Postal Service will later regret?
This topic is hosted by the OIG’s Risk Analysis Research Center (RARC).
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Put them back out at major intersections, or at least one on every carriers route. Pick it up once a day when the carrier goes past it, the only pickup of the day. List the location of the nearest boxes with a late pickup, if a customer has something hot.
Advertize on the box…click and ship, piority mail, etc…
Cost minimal….we have the boxes, 2 -3 minutes for carrier to scan and change out the tub, advertising value, and good will….priceless.
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I still remember how I found out my local mailbox was gone. I walked down to where it always was, and there were 4 rusty marks on the ground where it was.
It seemed my only option was to get in my car, and drive to where there was a mailbox. All the milboxes were in a neighborhood where there were less than 10 houses per block. My street had 50+ houses, but no “significant” citizens.
When I looked at the new pick up times, I realized that it wasn’t even going to picked up until late the following day.
At this point I realized that my mail was a great inconvenience to the Postal Service. As a good citizen, and a considerate person, I chose to make other arrangements, and drove a few more blocks to the letters destination.
The following month, I knew that I could just drop the letters off, and this time I didn’t have to bother the postal service with printing, or selling me any stamps. If they don’t want my mail, If my tranactions cost too much, then I can take a hint.
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Just as lowering taxes HAS PROVEN TIME AND AGAIN to increase economic activity and actually generate more revenue due to higher gains on productivity (“Google” search “The Laffer Curve” to learn more), here’s a great example of how lowering prices led to this company increasing sales so much that it has led to massive overtime as well massive profits: http://finance.yahoo.com/career-…- selfemployment The USPS would be wise to follow suit, as it’s been proven to work time and again. We’ve alreadt seen the devastating effects of raising prices here in the USPS, and how doing it loses volume and thus profits. The fact is, we, like that company I illustrated, had and have excess capacity and we’re literally paying people in some areas to do nothing. Lowering prices to spur volume that we could basically handle and deliver for nothing, since we have to process and deliver everyday anyway, is the right move. Raising rates and curtailing service (eliminating collection boxes, cutting a delivery day and reducing window hours as examples) is a suicidal business model. Doing the opposite, lowering rates and expanding service is the best way to emerge from this funk.
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Lets try posting that website again: http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/108119/the-accidental-hero.html?mod=career-selfemployment
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our town used to have 32 blue collection boxes. the boxes were tapped daily no matter how few letters were in them. now we have about 12 for the whole town.of the 12,4 sit in the alley behind the post office. SERVICE has not diminished,just ask any mgt type at district or above. they are correct in one repect. we still provide the blue box. the problem is finding the _ _ _.
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Mail is picked up from every business and houshold, yank the boxes off the street and save the money, gas, time, and help the environment at the same time.
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Bravo for finally waking up to this OIG!!
My old manager in retail used to say, “boys, I cant sell it, if it’s not on the floor”! Duh?!?
Most of the Carriers and managers dont actually COUNT the mail in these during test periods, they lie so they can pull them out. My box is full every day, because lazy carriers&supvr.s didnt want the collection boxes anymore.
My customers all complain, where are the neighborhood collection boxes?. They used to be on every corner, put them back, put an ad for priority on the side,
I don’t know, maybe something simple like, it fits it ships???
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Two of the stupidest things the USPS has done was removing collection boxes and stamp machines. DUMB DUMB DUMB. The office use is closed when I get off work. I always used the stamp machines.
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in the south ga district as many boxes as possible were removed regardless of volume. boxes near the hospitals in savannah which were overflowing every business day were also removed. when a district level manager was asked why she replied that most zero bundles occurred on the regular carriers day off, the less blue boxes means less zero bundles which means higher potential bonuses just follow the money
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Important clarification
My last comment failed to identify the following acronym. It, this age of acronyms afterall…
So, the subject collection box identified in my last comment would be made of “clear” PET material, (recycled water bottles) which would visually show what was in the box at all times. Therefore, it would reflect the current Sustainability Initiative as identified in the 2008 Report!
Polyethylene terephthalate- PET
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My parents are in their 80′s and when the USPS removed ALL the collection boxes in their neighborhood, they were left with unpleasant options. The collection boxes that remained were along busy streets downtown and always blocked by parked.
They have never paid a bill via the Internet until now. Rather than risk leaving their bill payments in the mailslot for the carrier to pickup, they have starting paying bills via the Internet for the first time. That represents the majority of their outgoing mail.
This boneheaded move is more likely to accellerate the demise of First Class mail than cut significant costs.
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Change is inevitable, but this seems an all or nothing approach that has not been well considered. If we are looking to save government wastage, there are more lucrative savings and obvious places than in taking away the lines of communication of so many senior citizens in one fell swoop.
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Being a supervisor under a midget general in Georgia, his first objective was to remove all collection boxes in a city of 45,000 and only have one in front of two post office locations. He didn’t want any missed and showing up on a report. He cared nothing about the customer complaints, only looking good on reports. What did they do with him? Why, transfer him to another office, of course!
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This has been an issue for years. Postal should look at where these boxes are in proximity to an actual Post Office. The goal is to cut costs…maybe they should think about at what cost, costing costs will be…
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So now that the OIG has seen all these comments——what are you going to do about it? Is this blog a smokescreen, or do you really care?
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Postal Sanity wonders if the right hand knows what the left hand is doing……
We got the following quote from this article.
“Mail theft is a federal crime,” warned Renee Focht, a postal inspector and spokeswoman for the U.S. Postal Inspectors, a crime-fighting unit of the U.S. Postal Service.
She advises people to not leave mail — especially negotiable documents such as checks and money orders — in their mailboxes to be picked up by the postal carrier.
“Postal collection boxes provide more security because they’re locked,” Focht said.
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I may be showing my age, but people of my vintage have much to worry about. We do not put checks in the mail for fear of identity theft, nor do we pay online due to fruad. Now that secure mailboxes are being eliminated, we must venture further afield and waste more time and resources. This was not a good idea for us.
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I would say this is another stupid move from the postal service. Come on.. how much cost they could save?
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All I want to know is what do they do with the drop boxes? I seriously would like to purchase an old one maybe from the 40′s or 50′s. Where can I get one? Does anyone know?
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you can give a box of rocks the best suggestions in the world but________ Get my drift??????????
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