Is Email Killing the Post Office?

It Can't Be Helping.

By Chris Crum · May 29, 2011 · 93 Comments

Is email killing the post office? It’s not a new question. In fact, it’s been around nearly as long as the mainstream use of email itself, but it’s also not gone away, and the USPS has seen better days. I’m not normally one to buy too much into the typical x is killing y kind of hype, but the Postal Service is clearly severely injured.

Do you think email is killing the post office, or at least contributing to its demise? Share your thoughts here.

Bloomberg BusinessWeek has put out a lengthy report looking at the decline of the USPS and its contributing factors. While the seven-page pice just briefly touches upon the subject of email, comparing the performance of the USPS to that of FedEx, UPS, and DHL, as well as counterparts in other countries, there’s no question that email and online communication in general have done their fair share of damage.

People have been using email for years now, and despite some predicting the death of email (at the hands of social media), it’s clear that it’s hear to stay for quite some time. Even if email were to die, it wouldn’t do much to help the postal service.

As we’ve seen just in the past week alone, email is an incredibly important part of business for companies like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Twitter. Even Facebook has its own email now, and social networks all still rely on email to keep users engaged – that goes for the professionals too (ie: the newly public LinkedIn).

In a recent study, 45% said that their use of email at work will most likely increase in the next five years. 51% said that it would likely stay the same. Only 4% thought it would decrease. At home, 36% of those surveyed thought their email use will increase, 55% said it will stand pat and 6% said it will likely decrease.

The majority of important online communication still takes place through email, whether that be B2B or B2C. C2C online communication may be trending more toward social media, but again, email still plays a role here, in terms of notifications, and there is still plenty of C2C communication through email. Even from heavy users of social media. Not everyone is on the same social network. That even goes for Facebook. Email is universal. You pretty much need an email address to have any kind of account online.

The rise of mobile, and smartphones in particular, must also play a role, as it caters to increased use in email and social media, not to mention text messaging, and even….the phone call! The point is, communication is always as close as your pocket. It’s a lot easier and cheaper (at least on an individual interaction basis) than writing letters. And it’s in real time.

“With the rise of e-mail and the decline of letters, mail volume is falling at a staggering rate, and the postal service’s survival plan isn’t reassuring,” Devin Leonard says in the Bloomberg BusinessWeek report, noting that the USPS is the country’s second-largest civilian employer after Walmart (with more post offices than the retail outlets of Walmart, Starbucks and McDonald’s combined). Last year its revenues were $67 billion, with even greater expenses, he says.

According to the report, first-class mail, which the USPS gets the majority of its money from, has been steadily declining, and in 2005 fell below junk mail for the first time. Total mail volume has decreased 20% just from 2006 to 2010. The USPS hasn’t been able to cover its annual budget in three years.

Well, there’s still packages right? Sure, but there’s also stiff competition from companies like FedEx, UPS, and DHL, along with an increase in digital goods replacing physical goods. Think movies, music, and books. Amazon, the largest retailer on the web, announced last week that Kindle books are outselling print books. Never mind that there are a bunch of free ones too.

Plus, everybody’s going paperless these days. The Director of Physical Infrastructure at the U.S. Government Accountability Office is quoted as saying, “What happens when Bank of America or Citigroup says you are going to have to pay to get your statement on paper? That’s going to change a lot of behavior. It’s going to affect the postal service. That’s how they make most of their money.”

The Bloomberg BusinessWeek report includes some interesting ideas on how the Postal Service could get back on track, at least to some extent, but the outlook is looking pretty bleak. You have to wonder what this will mean for the future of digital communication like email.

Are email taxes on the horizon? Tell us what you think.

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There are 93 Comments. Add Yours.

Jon
May 27, 2011 at 9:54 pm
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If the postal services of the world are worried, they need to get ahead of the trend and introduce groundbreaking new services. I feel no sympathy for businesses that stand idly by and watch themselves fail. Be creative, try some new things and get back on track.
Winarto
May 29, 2011 at 7:53 am
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I don’t think so because it is very fascinated to write and read a handwriting letter. I feel happy to do that.
Martin
May 29, 2011 at 8:47 am
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If the Post Office could deliver a first class letter as promised, next day, undamaged, reliably, then maybe just maybe they could survive. So no chance then.
sniper
May 29, 2011 at 8:59 am
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As an internet retailer. All I can say is that it used to pay to use postal priority for 3.95. But rate hike after rate hike. Shipping a small item I might as well use ups. At least I get tracking. And ups is always on time. Why can’t postal promise delivery times when charging ups rates. Also. All. I mean all of our packages for postal get stolen somewhere when picked up. I contacted evveryone. No one cares. To ship postal we have to drop it off to the post office. What a pain. We do this only for po and international shipments. The post office did this to themselves. Subpar service. Theft. And raising rates to ups levels. I mean come on. How can you charge ups rates for an inferior product. Supplies also takes 3 weeks to come and if in a hurry even going to the local post office they are out of supplies. The local post office always have long lines because every form is hand filled and you need 5 forms to do a few things ups handles on one. Us postal is a joke and no one cares. And they just want to keep blaming email.
Joyce
May 29, 2011 at 9:00 am
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Yes, I also think email is killing the post office. I know I personally do not use the post office except at Christmas for mailing a package on occasion. With email and social media(Facebook, MySpace, etc) just sending out letters is almost obsolete.
Jeff Davies
May 29, 2011 at 9:13 am
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They have it coming to them and have only themselves to blame. Continual extortionate rises in the cost of postage stamps coupled with the biggest rip-off of all, double charging for the same service; Postage costs charged according to not only the weight of the package but the size of the envelope as well!!! Pure, pure greed!

I am a member of several voluntary organisations and we now only use email to broadcast messages because to use the postal service would mean the costs would be far too much, forcing continual member subscription rises and I’m sure this would then lead to us having less members and eventually the organisations would break up!
leffrey
May 29, 2011 at 9:13 am
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I feel that the Post Office is partly killing themselves. I am missing at least 1 financial statement from my mail every month and I get at least 10 letters addressed to other people. I have switched almost all of my billing to paperless because of this.

1. As far as personal friendly emails, I don’t think that this has taken much volume away from the post office, because it was probably a small part of the volume.
2. Business contracts, statements, invoices, etc will take much of the mail volume away. But I myself would have preferred getting a paper invoice by mail until paperless methods are perfected – but I will not risk my statements getting into other peoples hands and I also won’t risk missing a credit card payment if the bill never shows up (this has happened 5 or 6 times in the last year from 5 monthly credit card statements).
3. But the article is playing down the increase in parcel volume. It must be tremendous. They don’t even need to be so competitive to keep much of that increased volume. But here also, with our company they will lose it. They are missing key ingredients. Point to point tracking with 1st class and Priority. Consistent delivery times (UPS and Fedex gaurantee this too). Not business sensitive on the delivery side…if they try to deliver and the business is not open, they leave a note to come pick it up instead of trying to redeliver….where UPS and Fedex will re-try 2 more times. Our delivery person is lazy and will not bring anything that needs to be signed up one flight and just leaves the orange note causing us to have to go to the post office, pay for parking and then wait in a 30 minute line to get it. And last but not least they make it very difficult for a company to setup daily pickups. Also, try navigating their phone menus to get some help when an Express package doesn’t make it to it’s destination….you will hangup in frustration. But when you call their competitors, it is simple.

USPS has a foot into every door. If they just got their act together, they could easily STEAL the delivery business. But I guess from seeing the failure of DHL taking over Airborne Express, it shows how difficult it must be to re-invent itself. I still think that with 4 or 5 changes, USPS can steal the market – but maybe they just don’t want the market???
Ron Nixon
May 29, 2011 at 9:28 am
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Yes it is.

Years ago the Post Office lost a golden opportunity. Imagine if the post office had setup a Western Union type of system where a postcard could be sent from one post office to another. They had offices all over the country, an established delivery system, a market for the service and very little competition.

Unfortunately they got bogged down in privacy issues. (I never understood this since there is nothing private about a postcard.)

The post office still has dedicated people on its payroll. Unfortunately they are saddled with rules and regulations that make it difficult for them to make a profit. And, based on my own experience and that of my dad who retired from the post office; they have many incompetent political appointees and managers who should be fired and replaced.

I hope someone finds a way to save the post office and the loyal, hard-working empolyees who faithfully deliver our mail.
Gary Spencer
May 29, 2011 at 9:37 am
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The answer is No, email is not killing the post office, in fact in the last 10 years mail has actually increased thanks to more marketing junk, ebay sales and internet ordering. The thing that is killing the PO is more to do with outdated practices and also their insistence to increase prices way beyond inflation thereby encouraging more and more companies and ebay sellers to use courier services. It is their OWN FAULT
Doug D.
May 29, 2011 at 9:37 am
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My 2 cents.. Kudos to the mail carriers, it is a hard job, door to door in all weather, but on the flip side every time i walk into a post office, they are slow, very slow, and you feel a sense of .. how do i put it.. they are not there for the customer, that its a bother for them to help you.. never a sense of urgency to speed up to make the line go away.. all in all, i feel they feel.. they have a government job and they are going to milk it to the end.. which is very close, which indecently makes me very angry, because i am retired military and always had to produce.
BRDolz
May 29, 2011 at 9:44 am
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I agree with sniper, I am also in internet sales and would much rather use FedEx to ship our packages, delivery is done within 4 days and they can be tracked. The business in sending personal letters may have shrunk, however there is a new business in internet sale of products and that has grown. As with all government run business the USPS does not run for profit instead run by the Unions, it is killing itself.
Bev
May 29, 2011 at 9:44 am
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There is no doubt in my mind that email is behind the huge postage increases we have seen in the past couple of years. Will it be the demise of the USPS? Only time will tell.

But, one thing is clear. The huge postage increases will likely be one of the reasons behind the demise of small businesses that depend upon reasonable shipping rates.
mintjulep
May 29, 2011 at 10:00 am
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I do a fair amount of shipping and would choose USPS over FedX and certainly UPS any day. My packages are small and the rates, until this last increase for 2nd oz, have been extremely reasonable. But I agree there appears to be a lot of mismanagement at USPS. They’ve been tossing around non-delivery on Sat for a long time. Just do it, I can’t imagine we can’t get by with 5 day delivery. As far as standing in lines, I can’t remember the last time I had to do that, with on-line postage thru USPS and Pay-Pal and with USPS pick up at your door with an email request, I never go to the post office except for international shipping. An inexpensive digital scale and the USPS web site make it a snap. If you only ship at Christmas, then standing in line 1 day a year is fairly tolerable, I would think.

UPS wouldn’t deliver a $6 package to my front door a couple of week ago because their new driver was afraid of our sandy road. They wanted me to drive 52 miles round trip to their warehousing facility to pick it up! So there are pros and cons to all delivery services.I still believe USPS to be the better service, yes they need tracking on regular first class mail. Pay Pal beats them hand over first for that service.
- David Cook
  May 29, 2011 at 12:39 pm
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  When I order stuff online, I will only use vendors who send stuff by mail. I can’t stand using UPS. If I am not here, the postman will leave the package in the mail box or put a key in the box to use on of the bigger boxes that our trailer park shares. If UPS delivers, and I am not here, I have to go get it from UPS office. I am never home to sign for UPS.
  
  Also, if they close one day a week, it should be Tuesday or Wednesday, because the Post Office being open on Saturday is really convenient for people who have M-F 9-5 jobs.
Gary
May 29, 2011 at 10:07 am
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I had been using both e-mail and snail mail for many years but as of the last few stamp increases, I have been doing more and more online bill paying.
Gary
May 29, 2011 at 10:08 am
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Your right, even you required an email address to leave a reply. I don’t remember when a letter was free but I do remember penny pastcards and 3 cents for letters. Up until quite recently ALL of their rate hikes were due to the volume of mail they had to handle. It took them until the twenty fisrt century to start complaining about email hurting their business. They are like most businesses that go under. When business slows down and they don’t make their 30% profit or whatever, they raise their price and layoff people. Then what do you get due to higher prices and poor service, even LESS profit. Dang, gotta rasies prices again. Sounds like congress and their stupid tax ideas. You raise prices (taxes) too high and we’ll find somewhere else to spend what money we do have left.
Trust me, I’m only 70, but I learned long ago that if the people have something they use a lot and the feds aren’t getting any money from it, they WILL tax it! It may take them awhile to catch on and a while longer to figure out how. BUT, they will and we will just figure out something else to use. I probably won’t be around to see that one though at the speed they work.
TAM
May 29, 2011 at 10:08 am
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First off, most probably didn’t send as many letters as they do e-mail. I hardly ever sent any letters to anyone because of the trouble of getting stamps, sending the letter etc. (And hoping it actually got there in one piece and in a timely fashion.) E-mail makes it much simpler and of course with cell phones so prevalent in people’s lives the quick call to mom rather than a letter or even e-mail is easier and more conveient than ever. The problem with the post office is they really need to recruit someone from FedEx or UPS to help them compete in the package delievery realm. That is what will save them.

On another note, please get an editor to look over your articles, Chris! I found at least half a dozen mistakes and I’m not a picky reader. Perhaps the question should be, is e-mail and social media degrading our grammar and education? Because I find SO many mistakes in online articles and e-mails it isn’t even funny anymore.
Roger Uriarte
May 29, 2011 at 10:09 am
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The Postal service has done it to themselves with poor service and yearly price increases, I’ve had to look to electronic means.
elwyatt
May 29, 2011 at 10:24 am
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The answer is no. Very few people are going to pull out pen and paper and look for an overpriced stamp in order to send a handwritten note to somebody. There are too many new, more efficient ways to send a message now. The post office will have to get by on commercial mail or die.
Lori
May 29, 2011 at 10:31 am
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You’d think with the decreased volume, the service would improve. But, no! I sent my tax return to the IRS, unfortunately for me it didn’t have enough postage. It took 3 weeks for the USPS to return it to me and of course that made me late in filing. Now I have to pay late fees to the IRS. Somehow, this doesn’t seem fair to me. You’d think at tax time anything addressed to the IRS would have a little priority.
We also received a piece of mail with an “undeliverable address” 1 YEAR later. If I didn’t have to use the USPS for some things I wouldn’t, the service is totally unacceptable. I have to mail my tax returns, because its for my business and you can’t overnight (UPS, Fedex) to the IRS, so I have to use USPS. Thanks Uncle Sam for helping out SMBs!
Digital Matrixx
May 29, 2011 at 10:32 am
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It’s not killing me
Joyce
May 29, 2011 at 10:33 am
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For a week my mail wasn’t delivered because my contracted carrier was on vacation. A WEEK and I live in a urban area (my PO is a block away)! When I asked others in my apt building if they had received their mail, my suspicions had been confirmed. I called and complained, and was met with a surly and rude USPS supervisor. But low and behold a weeks worth of mail showed up at the end of the end of the day. Can you imagine if I had had this problem with my email provider? I would have fired them and found a better service. This is why people choose email over the USPS (and other internet transfer services) whenever it’s possible to do so.

So, is email killing the Post Office? NO! The Post Office IS killing the Post Office. AND the continued USPS hubris tells me they still haven’t figured this out!
mike
May 29, 2011 at 10:34 am
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companies / services that cannot keep up with the times (and offer sub par services for the money), should be put down like a lame horse. I don’t think any average consumer has any love for USPS services.

Oh wait— these “dinosaurs” just get bailed out by the US Government using our taxpayer money… So I wouldn’t expect USPS to go away anytime soon, let alone offer any improvements to services / offerings. sad sad sad.
Richard
May 29, 2011 at 10:54 am
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Email and shipping are one thing that has hurt the USPS and paperless and online bill payment is another thing they are loosing revenue to as well. Funny thing is that the Federal Government is responsible for maintaining the Post Office and post roads to support it. The WWW in general offers an improvement on that.
Carl
May 29, 2011 at 10:57 am
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The mentality of the post office is best shown by the week long workshop they held a few years ago. The workshop was to address the hostility that was being generated by the long wait time in post offices.

After a week of brainstorming, discussions, and who knows what else, a sloution was developed. All clocks were removed from post office lobbies. Nothing was done to speed up service.

To be fair, I did not attend the workshop, but I did ask a postal employee why the clock had been removed from the lobby. The USPO employee told me about the workshop.

Maybe in their minds, removing the clocks ws a groundbreaking solution. I think “NOT!”.
- Shadow Fire Promotions, Inc.
  May 31, 2011 at 11:45 am
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  It would have been a TERRIFFIC solution, if they had similarly banned wristwatches, pagers, cell phones and any other device that allows people to check and see how long they have been waiting while “Wanda” sits painting her nails and gossiping to her neighbour about “some rude bitch”, while failing to realise she IS the very same thing she complains about.
Gary Halpin
May 29, 2011 at 10:57 am
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I imagine that where the mailing companies have lost out on personel letters being sent to and fro, it must surely have gained from the likes of e.bay and online shopping. I would think the biggest loosers are the high street as more and more people shop online!

The parcels divisions of the post office surely have seen a dramatic increase in turnover since the advent of the internet and whilst e.mail has killed off nearly most personel correspondence, it is left for them to diversify in face of change and I think they have!

Gary

Medium Priced Accommodation Guide to Great Britain and Ireland
Randy Yanagawa
May 29, 2011 at 11:02 am
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What always amazes me is how people are always pointing their fingers at the postal system and criticizing them each time the post office is forced to raise its rates in order to balance its budget, while at the same time are the reason the post office needs to raise its rates!

As your article points out, is how the volume of mail has decreased as the volume of e-mail has increased. But, when you need to send a paper document, photo, or whatever to someone across the country…its still a bargain to be able to do so for under 50 cents!

I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not thrilled to hear of any increase in postal rates, but it probably affects my annual budget the less than the extra cost of filling my gas tank ONCE when the oil companies raise their prices. Yet, you don’t hear them catching flak when an increase in the price of oil hits the pumps within 48-hours (usually less), but any decrease in the price of oil takes 3-4 weeks to work its way to the pumps. Why is that?

By the way, if you live in an area where you are serviced by rural carriers, they must pay those same higher gas prices and they go through a lot of gas on a weekly basis bringing the mail to your driveway.

As for comparing them with UPS or FedEx, neither of them are saddled with all the regulatory rules that the USPS operates under. Gas prices go up, ADD a fuel surcharge. USPS can’t do that. Want to raise rates across the board…do it! USPS can’t do that without going thru all the red tape and bureaucracy.

Personally, I have had more damaged goods delivered to me via UPS than I have ever had with the USPS. I have had more than my share of instances where shipments did not arrive in 2-days as promised by UPS. So, apparently, I have a unique problem with UPS here.
- Shadow Fire Promotions, Inc.
  May 31, 2011 at 11:43 am
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  I would disagree that people aren’t complaining about the oil companies and the dependence on gas! Unless you’ve not been paying attention, that’s been going on for a while!
Richard
May 29, 2011 at 11:05 am
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There is another problem however, the National APWU tentative Collecting Bargaining Agreement was ratified by their members on May 11, 2011. see it here – http://www.apwu.org/dept/ind-rel/sc/APWU%20Contract%202010-2015.pdf

The 2006-2010 agreement was scheduled to expire Nov. 20, 2010, but it remains in effect until a new agreement is reached through negotiation, mediation, or arbitration. Is anyone here involved with this process? I don’t think the USPS, as long as it is run by the Union, will be going away for a long, long time.
John N. Ashe
May 29, 2011 at 11:19 am
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The USPS is a victim of its unsuccessful attempt to start email in the early nineties.
David
May 29, 2011 at 11:22 am
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As a UK Internet retailer, I suggest that the reliability of our Royal Mail service is second to none. In the last ten years, my packages have been safely delivered at home and accurately tracked worldwide, with only two losses out of thousands of deliveries. Neither the fault of Royal Mail.

But, the popularity of e-mail and electronic communications has had a considerable effect on the rising numbers of rural post office closures and on their pricing, with regular postage rate increases.

Their latest 80% inexplicable increase ( from £97 to £170 per annum ) to have one of their P.O. Box addresses, is especially painful !!

But in comparison to the equivalent courier delivery costs, for the moment, our Royal Mail postal service is still the best to use !!
Jim Young
May 29, 2011 at 11:29 am
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I think the Post Office did themselves in for a number of reasons.
Sure, email is used by most everyone but a handwritten or typed letter also serves it’s purpose. The Post Office put themselves out of the market by continually and rapidly increasing prices to the consumer and businesses. They have also eliminated some services that were a benefit to consumers and businesses. You can’t really compare them to UPS, FedEx that directly because they are offering an entirely different brand. The direct mail industry is still a gigantic industry with millions of direct mail pieces being mailed all of the time by small and big businesses alike. The Post Offices big error was by not being competetive on prices against emails. Emails cost nothing, but sending a direct mail paper letter with all of the trimmings gets better results. But the cost has gone up so high for bulk mail that companies have entirely eliminated that segment or have cut back a lot. Why doesn’t the Post Office take off their dunce cap?
They also eliminated economy mail to send to foreign countries. Don’t they think that this could have a huge negative impact on small businesses in this country? They eliminated mail by ship. Wow, that seems really dumb. Why can’t the Post Office get some sort of Social Media program going? It’s true that the Post Office hires out of government executives to run it, but maybe they should look for someone who has common sense and can understand the needs of the U.S. citizen and the millions of businesses in this country.

Jim Young