Category Archives: Mail & Postage

Postal Service Mailboxes

Posted on by

Blue USPO Mailbox

While the United States Postal Service publicizes the closing of thousands of post offices nationwide, the laying off of workers, and the end of Saturday delivery, one service the Postal Service offers has been slowly, quietly disappearing: the corner mailbox.

Once a staple in many neighborhoods, the blue mailbox on the corner is now slowly fading into history. Nancy Pope of the Smithsonian Institution commented thus about the significance of the corner mailbox: “Nothing says you’re on an American street more than the blue mailbox. It’s part of a neighborhood identity. It’s reassurance, it represents our ability to communicate with one another. When you take this away, something is lost.” At one time these blue mailboxes were seemingly everywhere. A convenience that perhaps has been taken for granted over the years. Data show the number of United States Postal Service blue mailboxes nationwide.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 1985 and 2011
Market Size: 400,000 and 160,000 respectively
Source: Bob Greene, “Farewell My Mailbox,” CNN.com, September 8, 2011, available online here. The charming little image used above was obtained from this site, and used with our thanks.
Original Source: Research by Carolyn Jones of the San Francisco Chronicle.
Posted on October 28, 2011

Express Delivery Market

Posted on by

The Internet has not done away entirely with the need to ship documents across the globe and quickly. Today we look at the express delivery industry which provides expedited delivery of documents and parcels almost anywhere on earth. Major players in this industry include familiar names like DHL, FedEx, and UPS, although national postal services also have a role in this business.

The market size presented below is the estimated total sales revenue generated by the express delivery industry in 2008.

Geographic reference: World
Year: 2008
Market size: $175 billion
Source: “Facts & Figures on Express Industry,” a report made available online, here, by The European Express Association.
Original source: Oxford Economics
Posted on October 24, 2011

U.S. Postal Service

Posted on by

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) employed 656,000 people in 2010 making it one of the largest single employers in the United States. It handles billions of pieces of mail annually and has been in service since before we were even a nation (1775). In fact, the constitution itself calls for the establishment and maintenance of a postal service. While the rise of electronic means of exchanging data has had an impact on the USPS by reducing the number of items it is charged with carrying annually, the USPS continues to provide an important function in our society. Do not be fooled, no for-profit entity would charge the same amount for daily mail pick-up and delivery to those in distant and hard to reach rural areas as it would charge residents of a densely packed city.

It is true that the USPS is operating at a bit of a loss these days but that could be remedied with a few cent increase in the price of a stamp. While the USPS has been downsizing to adjust to the new realities of the Internet age it is also true that from November 1981 to 2010 the price of a standard stamp increased by less than the cost of inflation. The United States has one of the least expensive postal services anywhere. If you’re interested in how the USPS compares with postal rates in other countries, there is a nice chart on that subject available here.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 1960 and 2010
Market size: Pieces of Mail Handled: 63.7 and 170.6 billion respectively
Market size: Number of Post Offices: 35,238 and 27,077 respectively
Source: Pieces of Mail Handled, Number of Post Offices, Income, and Expenses, 1789 to 2010, available online here.
Original source: United States Postal Service