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Did anybody see the USPS asked for bailout money? Short article said they have been losing money [Duhhh!] and now need the help of the government to shore them up, now that the overall volume is down due to the virus.
This link as well as Google it and there are lots of other articles on it. Some sa the USPS can only last until the end of summer, others say Congress has included $25 Billion for the USPS other articles say, Congress can’t decide if they will include money for them, etc., etc.
That brings up the question of how would we all operate if the USPS was out of the picture as far as handling packages.
Our mail lady said that all the employees say that they don’t like handling packages any way and thought the USPS would be better off just handling snail mail envelopes and advertising and letting Amazon, UPS, FedEx and others do the packages. Letting privatization take over the large bulky items. But I think that was her gripping more than anything because jumping in and out of the truck in rain, snow and porch pick ups slow her down.
But the fact the USPS is now asking for a ton of money to try to stay in the game.
Mike at MDC Concepts, Inc.
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It would be a disaster if the USPS was privatized or not provided enough funds and chose not to honor media mail rate packages anymore. That would instantly put me out of business. It would destroy the used book market outside of FBA. The bulk of my inventory is not suitable for FBA, and FBA isn’t currently accepting books from sellers anyway. They have still not established a date for “non-essential” items to be accepted back to their warehouses.
My first-rate 2-5 oz. packages might be suitable for either letter rate for USPS or some form of first class shipment for UPS, Fedex, etc,. I would have to determine that and if it would be worth staying in business for. If it continued with letter rate USPS, a lot of packages would probably end up “missing” if they didn’t have tracking provided. Still, it would not be enough to live on.
Depending on shipping rates and how difficult things might become without the USPS, I would probably quit reselling altogether and try to get a job because I would just be completely over it at that point. However, with 20%+ unemployment, this would be the worst time to get to try get back into the workforce. I would apply for unemployment and delist all of my items from reselling sites. I would also have to figure out some payment system with Paypal Working Cap. if I was forced out of reselling (through no fault of my own) and couldn’t pay them back as scheduled. I bet a lot of other people would also have to do the same.
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Yeah.. I was taken back by the information I was finding. We all have klnown for a very long time that the USPS was skating on thin ice and could never seem to pull itself into the black, but they seemed to limp along in the red. Now that the Virus has hit I guess they are just overwhelmed.
But to look on the brigther side, I don’t see them going anywhere, for the time being with a $75 Billion bucket of monet throwrn at them, but I don’t see the USPS as a Chrysler Corp. and being able to begin operating in the black and ever getting to operating profitably. They never have in the past.
They would have to raise prices a whole lot and then try to compete and market with the bigger guys and they have never been able to do that in the past decades, especially with having 5 Committee Members from Congress on their board or whatever they have as a guiding body. No Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, or Money Sharks there.
They also have a fairly heavy pension / retirement plan to support.
This, just like everything else is going to be a wait and see how everything shakes out six months or longer down the road.
mike at MDCGFA in Atlanta
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The USPS would take a long time to phase out because of the reverberating effects people are mentioning of how it would damage businesses. It may end up like parts of the railroad industry/AMTRAK– basically operating at a loss for decades because the infrastructure is too critical to the national interest. That’s why we are as taxpayers paying for the pension of retired railroad workers. I’m not complaining, but its an example of there being some critical infrastructure that needs to operate even if it doesn’t earn money. Socialism being used to save capitalism as it were.
I am noticing really significant delays in shipping with USPS right now. First class is taking 2-3 days longer than usual. I can’t square that with them saying volume is down.
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Yeah, I’m seeing problems with first class & media mail shipping as well. It seems to be taking a week for items to get across the country via 1st class mail. Media mail is taking 2 weeks or longer to arrive places. I’m seeing delays of up to a week for media mail packages just to get out of my zip code – there are clearly too many 1st class, prio and express mail packages to go first. Priority mail seems to be arriving mainly on time at least, 2-3 business days.
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I agree with Almasty and yourself. The USPS is a greatly needed part of the infrastructure and not having them as a source, even if they increased the prices somewhat is still a resource for businesses large and small and very vital for the smaller online sellers.
I could weather the storm if they even raised prices a buck on each class. I have said here on the forum before, I would rather see them raise prices a dollar at a time every two or three years, rather than $.25 to $.45 once or twice [or more in years past] all the time.
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I can’t imagine they will not get bailed out, they are such a huge institution that it’s almost unthinkable for them to “go under”.
IF something were to happen to USPS I would hope Ebay would partner with some of the other carriers like Mercadolibre has done here. I can ship basically anything the size of a shoebox anywhere in the country, next day with DHL for under $5…
Almasty, I totally understand your point, media rate is a necessity for selling lower end books, might be time to raise your threshold on the books you go after. Not sure what your minimum price point is, but when I was selling books I started with a “nothing less than $8” mindset, then over time gradually raised it to “nothing less than $12” and so on as time went by until I wasn’t really dealing with anything worth less than $20 when I went out sourcing. It took a little while to get used to buying far fewer books but it was worth the change.-
Current ALP for my listed book inventory is $32 on my non-Ebay sites. Some books weigh 5-10 pounds easily. That would cost $15-20 for Fedex or UPS to ship? I doubt customers would pay that much, but who knows? I would think even a standard 1 or 2 pound book would cost $5-10 to ship on one of the private sites? Higher rates across the country. I have no idea, I’ve never looked at UPS or Fedex rates for these sort of scenarios. I have shipped really heavy instruments across the country for $40 with Fedex Ground, but I would think that they wouldn’t have rates as low as $2.80 or $3+ for 1-3 pound items to go across the country. I doubt the book market could absorb $5-10 shipping on top of $10-20 books. It would push buyers to buy “brand new free shipping” books from Amazon, if they were currently in print.
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The article doesn’t explain why Trump does not want to help the PO, but I admit, this doesn’t bode well for us as sellers who depend heavily on USPS (Better Half and I only use USPS). When this was originally brought up, I figured a bail out was kind of a slam dunk, given the importance of the USPS to the infrastructure of the country……have to admit, I’m a bit more worried now.
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