During the 2022 holiday season, USPS processed more than 11.7 billion mail pieces and packages. The average delivery time was 2.5 days.
Pretty impressive right? It makes you wonder how postal services are able to keep up. Well, the post office keeps quite busy throughout all times of the year.
As of March 2023, USPS processes and delivers 62.1 million pieces of First-Class Mail and 421.4 million mail pieces daily.
Let’s break this down a bit more. That’s 17.6 million mail pieces each hour, 292,628 each minute, and 4,877 each second.
It’s quite fascinating. The USPS’ service regime must be quite solid. Seeing the numbers for processed mail and deliveries down to the minute really puts logistics into perspective.
In this blog, we walk through and explain what USPS is, what it does specifically, and explain its benefits.
Table of Contents
What is The USPS?
Founded on July 1, 1974, the USPS is the United States Postal Service. Also known as the post office or postal service.
There are hundreds of thousands of post offices around the United States. 34,000 locations to be exact. Chances are that you’re not too far from one.
The USPS is an independent agency of the United States Federal Government. Quick US history refresher here, there are three branches in the Federal Government: legislative, executive, and judicial.
The postal service exists outside of the executive branch. In other words, it’s an independent agency that operates on its own.
USPS is also NOT a for-profit enterprise or a “nonprofit”. The main purpose of USPS is to provide a public benefit to the country, which is mail shipment and delivery services.
Money isn’t necessarily what drives the post office to get up and deliver mail every day, but it’s an indicator of how well everything operates.
As a nonprofit, USPS dispenses most of its profits toward advancing the organization. While USPS is a nonprofit organization, it’s still able to pay its employees.
USPS is one of America’s largest employers, with around 516,760 employees. That’s more than half a million!
With some strategic planning, temporary employees are also hired during the holiday season, from Thanksgiving to New Year’s, in order to keep up with the high volume of deliveries.
As the years go by, the USPS takes on the strategy of moving part-time employees to full-time, which has exceedingly reduced the amount of seasonal hires.
In 2023 alone, the USPS acquired only around 10,000 temporary hires for the holiday rush. By contrast, it hired 28,000 temporary workers in 2022 and 45,000 in 2023.
USPS vs UPS
It can be easy to get USPS and UPS confused. Very similar names and functionalities, but they focus on and or specialize in different things.
UPS is the United Parcel Service. It’s a publicly traded, multinational shipping, receiving, and supply chain company. It was originally founded in 1907 and has become one of the world’s largest shipping couriers.
While UPS is a worldwide company, USPS is responsible via the government for providing postal services within the U.S.
Beyond the “type” of company the two organizations are, they also focus on different aspects of delivery. The USPS focuses on mail delivery and smaller packages. Meanwhile, UPS delivers shipments and packages both large and small.
For example, say you’re working for a company where you have to order inventory. This inventory needs to delivered. UPS or another shipping company would be the one to deliver your order and not USPS.
If you were to send a package or send a letter to a loved one, USPS would be the carrier.
Both are in the same industry and do similar things, but specialize in different areas…and one happens to be a federally run organization.
The Biggest Benefits of The USPS
Benefit 1: Certified Mail
First and foremost, one of the main benefits that come with USPS is “Certified Mail”.
In a previous blog post, we covered what certified mail is as well as its functions and benefits.
But, it doesn’t hurt to do some review. Certified mail is a service offered through USPS where the sender receives confirmation that their letter or package successfully shipped. The recipient gives their signature upon the item’s arrival. The sender is aware of the shipment's status practically at all times through a receipt and tracking number.
There are a few reasons as to why this would be of benefit to you.
Let’s say that you’re a local doctor. Every month you see hundreds of patients. Each of those patients needs to pay for the treatment that they receive. As a result, you have to send each of them their statements to notify them of how much they owe and to collect revenue.
However, the information provided within their statements is highly sensitive in nature. So sensitive, in fact, that there’s an entire law that exists to protect patient’s health information called the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
HIPAA defines sensitive health information as Protected Health Information (PHI). Patient statements contain PHI. Thus, they must have safeguards placed on them during delivery to ensure that that information doesn’t land in the wrong hands.
If it does, the healthcare organization that sent the statement would receive a fine. That’s where certified mail comes in handy.
Certified mail requires a signature from the recipient once received to avoid incidents such as this. You’re also notified as the sender when shipment delivery occurs, or even when a delivery attempt occurs.
Certified mail also helps you accurately and actively check the status of your delivery at all times. In the event that the shipment gets misplaced or lost in transit, you’re notified and have the information necessary to make sure the required action occurs.
You can say that certified mail has your back.
Benefit 2: Electronic Verficiation System (EVS)
eVS, or Electronic Verification System, is a feature USPS provides that takes on a more technological approach.
It allows high-volume package mailers and consolidators to log and pay postage through electronic manifest files stored on an online Postal Service™ database.
The purpose of eVS is to make actions once done meticulously, easier and more efficient. It streamlines various parts of the mail delivery process for those who frequently go through this process.
There are some key components that come with eVS…
Intelligent Mail Barcode (IMb): This keeps essential information about the shipment
Address Verification: This ensures shipments reach the right destination, real-time tracking of shipments
Enhanced Security Features: Help deter theft and or tampering with shipments through a digital trail of the shipment.
Benefit 3: Low and Predictable Pricing
USPS offers low pricing for deliveries. This is a benefit to everyone whether you frequently ship out parcels or not.
The USPS announced that they would not levy any additional holiday surcharges for 2023. This made pricing quite predictable and comfortable for customers.
If you aren’t pleased with this already, let me break it down more for you.
This means that there are no additional fees for residential area delivery for Saturday delivery or minimum volumes.
Thus, the USPS continues to be the most affordable way to mail and ship out parcels during the holiday season.
Benefit 4: Quick Deliveries
Millions of mail pieces process through and get delivered by the USPS each and every day. As I stated previously, the average delivery time is less than 3 days!
USPS utilizes effective and efficient processing and shipping methods to ensure a short waiting time for both persons on either side of the delivery.
If you’re anything like me, I could know a package is coming in 3 days or less and still check the delivery status regularly. In fact, multiple times a day.
If you choose the certified mail route, you are able to actively track your delivery status at all times. You know where it was and at what time as well.
This also aids in any worries or questions about whether or not someone is actually going to receive what you sent out.
Benefit 5: Provides Jobs
The USPS is a very large organization. It takes a village of people in order to keep up with the large amounts of mail that need delivered on a daily basis.
Also mentioned before, the USPS is one of the largest employers in America with around half a million employees.
It not only serves the community through providing a service and providing it well but also by providing jobs to individuals in society. It all comes full circle.
Benefit 6: Convenience
The USPS provides convenience in countless amounts of ways. We covered low and predictable pricing, efficient shipping and tracking, now let's move on to locations.
There are 34,000 locations around the United States. USPS also provides customer service through its website, via phone, and on social media.
Blue collection boxes, although they’re becoming not as popular, are also scattered around cities. If it couldn’t be easier enough, you can simply place outgoing mail in your mailbox and USPS will pick it up from your mailbox. Talk about the convenience of your own home.
The point that I’m trying to make here is that USPS locations and delivery options or methods are everywhere. They’re easily accessible and able to reach the masses which aids you and I from having to go out of our way to either ship or receive mail.
Most of us are able to receive mail to our homes, apartments, colleges, and so on. There are also options at USPS locations to acquire a mailbox or P.O. box there where you can pick up mail.
Conclusion
When you take into consideration the high volumes of mail that USPS works with on a daily basis, it is quite fascinating to see how quickly things get shipped out and delivered.
There are many benefits that USPS has to offer that we may not even realize or even take for granted. With options such as certified mail, USPS is modernizing and changing how deliveries work.
Certified mail has given people the assurance that they know where their shipment is as well as whether or not the intended recipient is receiving it. It provides customers with proof of mailing and delivery, and a receipt containing all of the necessary information to wrap this up all nicely. eVS ensures address verification, real-time tracking, enhanced security.
USPS has been around since the 70s and has adapted and implemented many modern strategies in order to keep up with the fast-paced ways of life.
Topics such as shipment security and tracking have become great focuses for USPS in order to ensure that mail is getting where it needs to go.
Mail deliveries impact us as well as businesses around us no matter how much they change. For some, USPS services are essential to the way that they carry out daily business functions.
