Postage Stamps' Days Numbered?

Another nice read on stamp collecting:

http://www.thepilot.com/news/2011/a...ys-numbered/

The reference to one uncooperative postal clerk versus another at a different post office still ring true today!

a thought provoking article wt1

It always seemed to me that a postal service was not supposed to be a business, but existed to provide for the common good. Who became king and decided we had to run everything on a business model. I think there is an unspoken assertion that a business model is more efficient. I beg to differ. In fact I think that the attempt to think of the postal service as a business has gotten it into the trouble it is in.

Don't get me wrong, I think we need to be fiscally responsible while providing for the common good (indeed to do so is yet another way in which a government would provide for the common good).

Last comment - Why does the USPS provide all those priority mail envelopes and boxes for free?

Great question! I've always wondered the same thing. Or better yet, how can the USPS justify the cost to deliver them to your door on request for free?

What about all the freebies that sit lying around in the post office lobby? All of the full colored insured mail, certified mail, confirmation of delivery forms, misc. brochures, etc.? A few I can see laying around for real use, but hundreds or thousands just sitting there makes for a mess and a lot get thrown out as they just get used for scrap paper throughout the day.

How can the USPS justify the cost to allow me to order postage stamps by mail with a postage paid envelope? And send them back to me for free? Or place an order from USA Philatelic in a postage paid envelope? And just cover $1 in postage and handling fees, when they send me the products in a delivery confirmation envelope that has to cost several times that fee (in retail value)?

I'm not complaining about this mind you, but for a fiscally insolvent postal service, how can the USPS justify the cost to put all of my serviced first day covers inside a cardboard backing and cellophane enclosure for no extra cost?

And this may rub stamp collectors the wrong way, but how can the USPS justify the expense to print so many new issues of postage stamps when the use of them is in such decline? Sure I can understand the revenue value of issuing stamps that will be desired by collectors, as that becomes pure profit for the postal service, but to my knowledge, no one has ever addressed how much it really costs to issue a new postage stamp from design service, to printing, to distribution versus what they recover in revenue by selling them. And how many get returned to their central offices for destruction if they don't get sold at the local post office within a set period of time?

If you've looked at any of the new issues, they are being printed in quantities ranging from 30 million to 300 million (for the Disney Pixar stamps), which is about 1 stamp for every man, woman and child in the entire country! At that rate, the printing cost alone must be incredible, never mind the distribution of stamps to every post office across the country for each and every new issue.

So much for my two cents.

There are small nations out there whose only income is philatelic sales (e.g. Bhutan) maybe larger nation's postal services should take a look at what they are doing and grab some pointers.

I was thinking yesterday, if we do away with the Lincoln Cent will the Post Office reduce the current price of a stamp ( roll back to 45 cent ) or will they have an automatic raise and profit in the stamps ( increase to 50 cent ) If they go up the Post Office should not ask for an increase in the price of stamps for a couple of years.

I don't have any number to go on but, I think the cost of printing stamps is perhaps the smallest cost item on their books. The cost to print a million stamps is about the same as the cost to print a million smiley face labels. Its the other cost that burden the PO. Labor, transportation, insurance, retirement payments, equipment, property and who knows what else. JMO.

Art

And to think I used to like Homer Simpson! (Edit: Is he endorsing the idea or is he shocked by the prospect of it?)



Anyway, I just ran across an article that suggests that in FY2008 the USPS printed 37 billion stamps and at a cost of $78 million dollars to print, so that figures to be approximately $0.0021 cents per stamp printed.

Actually, SCF members might be interested in the entire blog available at this link:

http://blog.uspsoig.gov/?p=2756

I think there are a few things you can do.

The postage for mailing letters seems to be getting near to realistic on comparison with other countries, so that is OK.

It is the parcels and such that will cost you more. In Canada we do not have Media mail and the cost to send a regular parcel is the same as to send an expedited (tracked) parcel and that is a lot.

We don't have small packet rates except to other countries.

I am thinking Canada Post looked at what services we do use and want and put the prices up on those but left the letter mail mostly alone, just sticking a penny a year increase on it to take people's attention away from the money-making parcel service. And they bought Purolater, a courier service.

Someone knew what they were doing.

They have unions, they have vast distances to cover, they deliver flyers like you wouldn't believe (I saw the postman today and he had two bags of mail and most all looked like flyers to me).

I don't know all the laws and ins and outs of everything but it seems simple to me.

Pay for what you get. It may rattle your economy around a bit (it costs half as much for me to get a CD or DVD mailed from the USA as it does from Canada and I'm in Canada darn it). If you pay for what it's worth you won't have cheap media mail or small packet rates either. $10 a package is a minimum (and it's probably more than that too) to pay here.

Then, you can have all these small Post Offices anywhere you want (as long as they can make some money or draw customers to buy other stuff in the store (drug store, corner store, whoever has the hours and people. Good tourist draws, as in the article. If everyone is concerned about communications then give everyone free internet.

Your postal employees will run pickup trucks and sorting plants but others can sell the products and collect the parcels and letters.

In Canada, Canada Post gets to have all the movement and delivery of letter mail by law but has to compete for parcels. But because of their letter delivery network they probably have the largest delivery service available to access and so do get a lot of parcel service also.

But . . . if a courier or delivery service was to have the right to move and deliver letters and had a good system and wide ranging delivery service that you trusted then people would probably use them instead of or in addition to the post office.

In business I used whatever delivery service would get the parcel to the place I wanted it to go, and it always wasn't the cheapest either. You are always fulfilling customer expectations in business and that means bill the freight to them, hide it in your prices, or absorb the cost somehow. Sometimes it was the small couriers that would come and pick the stuff up and get it there the next day (within a hundred miles or so) or even farther when trans-shipped to another small courier service.

Gee, that kind of sounds like how the old trains used to pass on the mails from one to another on it's way across the country.

From what I see out in front Canada Post's service is fast, you have people who care about what is going on at all stages of the operation, it's organized (well, more than I am anyway) and I have the impression (no they don't pay me) that when I mail something with them it's going to get there. It may cost a bit more than what I had set in my mind as a good price but heck, when you're paying for a good service, it's worth it to know your stuff will get there.

That's just good old marketing and fixing mistakes and having reasonable people on the 1-800 number so when you call they sure know what you're talking about and do what they can to help you.

Now, you all, down South there, seem to me to have the great service and the friendly help (reasonable expectations here) and cheap prices. I don't think you have to lose the first two parts of the puzzle but maybe the third part, the prices, could do with a reality check some days.

After that it's all marketing.

Well, and salesmanship and being friendly too. And those don't have to be paid big money for, just be trained for and paid reasonable. You want people persons dealing with the people, etc.

Look, if I had a good tourist or holiday destination or lived near by and there was no post office I would just open one myself in a store I owned or rented or shared with others and.

I am not sure how Canada has it that I am confident that when I mail something it will get picked up and delivered in Canada anywhere (well, their current slogan is 'From Anywhere, to Anyone', hmmm) but it seems to work out well. I automatically think if I want to mail something then, well, you have got to go into town mostly. You need help? Well call the neighbour or friend or maybe the post master will come out and get it after work or something.

I just had the thought that I will go to the Post Office tomorrow and have the worst time ever for all kinds of reasonable reasons. Karma or something.