I dabble in a little Ebay entrepreneurship (in addition to a little house flipping, car selling, airline security doing, inflammatory articles writing and... hey; I really do have too much time on my hands -- or am schizophrenic, take your pick ;-), and I just noticed I'm getting that same sweetheart (supposedly sweetheart) deal USPS gives to Amazon when it ships the online retail behemoth's packages: $1.46 off the cost of a Priority Mail, 3-day, flat-rate box.
Which brings me to the whole USPS-Amazon relationship. It may not be the big deal some of us think, because package delivery -- even with the supposed "Amazon subsidy" -- is one of the few bright spots for USPS, and it actually makes them a decent profit (that, and international mail delivery).
As it turns, according to the linked piece, while Amazon does get a pretty decent deal from USPS it's actually nothing that should be considered jaw-dropping in terms of savings.
"Trump loves to attack Amazon and its founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post. Yet Amazon and the broader e-commerce sector aren’t what’s ailing the USPS. They just might be keeping it afloat.
Shipping and packages were a rare bright spot for USPS in 2017, one of two sub-categories of mail for which revenue increased, rather than declined. (The other was international mail.) The service shipped 11 billion pounds worth of packages, or 5.7 billion pieces, in the 2017 fiscal year, generating $19.5 billion in revenue.
That was 12% more revenue than packages made in the previous year, and $500 million more than even USPS expected, “due to e-commerce growth and the successful implementation of various marketing and sales campaigns,” it said in its annual report.
Revenue from shipping and packages is also on track to overtake sales from first-class mail (and it’s certainly not Amazon’s fault that no one sends letters anymore)."
First-class envelope deliveries are what's draining USPS of money, but the law requires the Post Office to keep delivery of them going, along with the infrastructure and post offices (favored by congresspersons everywhere) necessary to handle all those mailers and other junk mail along with First-class envelopes. They also can't charge more for them, either, not unless Congress approves a rise in the price of stamps yet again (and what are the chances of them doing that, especially to a price level that would actually cover the cost to move those letters?).
Also, if USPS maybe raised the price of package deliveries a bit to lessen that discount, it may make delivering Amazon packages attractive enough for Fedex and UPS to move in, offer a slightly lower price and then take business away from a reliable USPS profit center. I don't think Congress wants to see that either, which is probably part of the reason why our august representatives and senators aren't squawking too much about Jeff Bezos and his rapaciousness in holding poor little USPS hostage, right? ;-)
"Politics is just show business for ugly people."
Which brings me to the whole USPS-Amazon relationship. It may not be the big deal some of us think, because package delivery -- even with the supposed "Amazon subsidy" -- is one of the few bright spots for USPS, and it actually makes them a decent profit (that, and international mail delivery).
As it turns, according to the linked piece, while Amazon does get a pretty decent deal from USPS it's actually nothing that should be considered jaw-dropping in terms of savings.
"Trump loves to attack Amazon and its founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post. Yet Amazon and the broader e-commerce sector aren’t what’s ailing the USPS. They just might be keeping it afloat.
Shipping and packages were a rare bright spot for USPS in 2017, one of two sub-categories of mail for which revenue increased, rather than declined. (The other was international mail.) The service shipped 11 billion pounds worth of packages, or 5.7 billion pieces, in the 2017 fiscal year, generating $19.5 billion in revenue.
That was 12% more revenue than packages made in the previous year, and $500 million more than even USPS expected, “due to e-commerce growth and the successful implementation of various marketing and sales campaigns,” it said in its annual report.
Revenue from shipping and packages is also on track to overtake sales from first-class mail (and it’s certainly not Amazon’s fault that no one sends letters anymore)."
First-class envelope deliveries are what's draining USPS of money, but the law requires the Post Office to keep delivery of them going, along with the infrastructure and post offices (favored by congresspersons everywhere) necessary to handle all those mailers and other junk mail along with First-class envelopes. They also can't charge more for them, either, not unless Congress approves a rise in the price of stamps yet again (and what are the chances of them doing that, especially to a price level that would actually cover the cost to move those letters?).
Also, if USPS maybe raised the price of package deliveries a bit to lessen that discount, it may make delivering Amazon packages attractive enough for Fedex and UPS to move in, offer a slightly lower price and then take business away from a reliable USPS profit center. I don't think Congress wants to see that either, which is probably part of the reason why our august representatives and senators aren't squawking too much about Jeff Bezos and his rapaciousness in holding poor little USPS hostage, right? ;-)
"Politics is just show business for ugly people."