USPS to deliver 1 billion fewer packages this holiday season

The USPS predicts it will handle 1 billion fewer pieces of mail — letters, cards and packages — during this year's holiday season compared with last year .

Not long ago , USPS issued a press release stating: "The 2020 holiday season was a record year for the Postal Service. Specifically, we processed and delivered 13 billion letters, cards, and packages under some of the most difficult circumstances . For the 2021 peak season-the period between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day-USPS will deliver more mail and packages than any other shipper. During the holiday season, 850 million to 950 million packages are expected . The total number of letters, cards, and packages processed and delivered is estimated to exceed 12 billion pieces."

The reason why USPS lowered its forecast has also caused speculation from foreign media. Is it related to the epidemic ? In addition , has the increase in mailing costs also had an impact on this ? Not long ago, the sales data for Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday were disappointing. Does the reduction in USPS mail also indicate that the overall online sales situation during this year's holiday may also be unsatisfactory?

In the comments on the relevant news, some sellers believe that many people started "early shopping" during the holidays this year . In addition, the rising shipping costs of USPS may have reduced its business volume, and many sellers have begun to consider other logistics providers, such as FedEx or UPS. An eBay seller said that the volume of packages shipped by USPS has decreased by 30-50%.

The USPS press release also announced that the price of a Forever stamp would increase from 55 cents to 58 cents, and that the prices of all retail and domestic commercial competitive packages would also temporarily increase during the holidays . This did "dissuade" many sellers to a certain extent .

The USPS press release also contains other data of interest to sellers : USPS expects customer traffic to increase steadily starting December 6. It expects the busiest mailing, shipping and delivery period to be the week of December 13-19 , when it will process and deliver nearly 2.3 billion pieces of First Class Mail ( first-class mail, including greeting cards and packages). USPS predicts that December 19 ( the last Sunday before Christmas ) will be the busiest day for the postal service online.

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