stay open later during the week and on saturdays
hell make the post office open 24/7.

Free tracking would be great. Does anyone know why it's so expensive anyway?

I think eliminating (via legislation if necessary) "junk mail" ads and crap would take a huge burden off the postal system and a huge annoyance away from the rest of us.

I wouldn't be surprised if that's one of the few profitable areas of operation that the postal service has.

If they made the mail boxes at the end of the street everywhere I think it would cut costs, it would also get people out of the house for a short walk everyday. Unfortunately it would have a drastic affect on the unemployment rate seen as we already have way too many postal workers.

you have a point. There still needs to be a way the post office can have compition. Without it, they can do what they please and never go out of business, no matter how bad they are.

You always hear this, but talk to many postal workers and they'll tell you they will tell you they are working six days a week and putting quite a bit of overtime. That would tell me that they in fact need more employees to save on overtime costs.

What makes you think there is no profitable business model for delivering to rural communities?  Surely the demand is there.  Worst case I'm sure they could hire someone to make runs to the city for it once a week or something.  I would think it would just be more expensive to send mail there.

would also increase stolen mail

Because even UPS pays the post office to deliver in some areas, so I have heard

They just lock the mailboxes and only give you a key for yours.  This is how we get our mail on our block.  It's nice because they even have a couple larger lockbox for parcels and if you have a parcel, you get a key for one in your mailbox so I usually don't have to go to the post office to get my packages either.

That just means it's cheaper to use USPS for rural areas (probably because it's subsidized).  It doesn't mean people wouldn't pay the extra cost it takes to get mail delivered there if there were no cheaper option.

In parts of the country where there is 1 person, or less, per square mile I don't think you could come up with a profitable price point that people would still be willing to use.

Also, keep in mind, that the most rural parts of the country are also some of the most impoverished, and can least afford to pay a higher postal rate to take care of necessities.

Am I the only one who doesn't think the PO does too bad of a job? Mail always gets to me on time, rarely is a box dinged up at all, and I've never had a package to or from me lost in the mail. Sure, they can improve, but I'm relatively happy with what they bring to the table.

OT - would be a problem to fix.
If the hourly workers can't do what needs to be done, clock out and the mgr. steps in and finishes (basically salary ppl have to finish).

Time=money, So the less OT would help the problem they have.
And since theirs so many ppl still without jobs heck, hire ppl but don't expect them to make mad-money there. Everyone that's already at are high paid you can't change that but at least you can introduce 'minimum wage' workers to the company.

The PO does make money but, they don't know how to manage it. Especially with greedy higher up people, problems won't change until their is a audit that can make a difference and kick out the waste.

as for their service - idk, it's hit and miss - they can be moody workers (dmv style), lines suck with closed windows (sound familiar? ....banks), packages can be late or surprisingly early.

the quirk I have with them is the price for shipping.
Media mail use to be a way to ship dvds,cds but since they messed up the pricing - 1st class it just about the same amount as media mail. Theirs like no difference when sending out single unit items. Unless you send a bunch out its worth it.

Then shipping to nearby locations, I live in huntington beach and I shipped something today with the same zip code, same city... and somehow it was more expensive to ship here than to Anaheim.
IDK what they are doing but something always seems wrong with the pricing... (example, overprice items @ super markets/grocery stores)

Their should be some type of consumer report on this, can you imagine all the overpaid stuff ppl send daily - and theirs a NO ASK policy..

If they had some real competition the PO would probably lose a lot of customers.

Well, technically, their competition for a good chunk of what they used to do is called "email".

I was just going to say the same thing. I think the PO is pretty much good as it is right now. I've had exactly one issue with them in probably well over 2000  packages sent. Can't complain about that percentage at all.

x2 agreed Mark.  I love the post office, I have no problems with their service.

If there is only one person then yeah they would probably have to use a slightly more centralized location, (I'm surprised they don't already, when I lived in the country we had to go into the nearest town for the mail).  I would be surprised if they couldn't find a compromise between centralizing the locations for the mail pickup somewhat, raising the price and delivering less often that would turn a profit.  The gov't is going to pay to send certain things to people no matter what you charge (as long as no one else is cheaper) and they would probably pay for people to send things to them too if neccessary for things that you are required to send to them.

That's true email is killing sending letters/paperwork.

But say a company pop's up and dedicates their effort in just packages dvdset size - bigger items. They can could just focus on that and let the PO have letters, because its small/med/lrg size packages is how the PO is banking off ppl.

If i could use a service that saves me a buck or 2 that would be great because then I would buy better supplies to ship stuff and more of it.

*
that's another thing that bugs me about the PO, all the envelope tape boxes they have for sale... The prices of all that stuff is so expensive. I dread the days when I sell something and haven't had time to buy supplies. So i go to the post office and get owned with 2 dollar small envelope and 3 dollar tape..

If they want some business, they should actually sell that stuff cheap, so I don't have to buy elsewhere for my supplies.

(other 2cents on this)

Well yeah, no kidding you are paying more at the Post Office. You often sacrifice price for convenience.  It's just like buying milk or medicine from a gas station without having to shop at the grocery store.  You're going to pay 10-25% more at the gas station due to the convenience of a quick in and out instead of walking through a large store and waiting in lines.

But that stuff is like having to buy a sandwich at the airport.  You're going to buy it, no matter the price, because you need it and it's convenient.

Ya i get the convenient thing but its totally different from a grocery store because theirs sooooo many of them (you don't really need a gas station unless its 24hr one). If you go to one post office the others have the same price. All I'm saying it's not really convenient because you have to go to the post office (majority of the time) and you are paying up the b' prices. If they are smart they could buy off those 3M mailers that 99cent stores get, make a deal with them so that they can have cheaper supplies.

The supplies they sell is like - Soda at fastfood joints - they probably don't pay much for them but they charge you 100%+ on it.

The thing is that they have been losing money and instead of fixing the problem so that you get more customers, they rather charge more to the existing customers and probably lose some on the way. It's the small things that at the end add up and make a difference.

UPS drops ships to almost every PO everyday, so does Fedex, and a few other smaller companies. Customers pay UPS the premium for the package, and it is then cheaper for UPS to pay us to deliver it and they pocket the profit.

I also don't think that most people understand how the PO actually works. The PO is the only self funded government agency. We do not (and haven't ever) received one dime in tax dollars. The entire budget is from shipping and stamp sells, the PO is totally self funded. The PO has always been designed to only break even, they have never wanted it to make a profit, just keep sustaining itself. That has always worked in the past, but with everything being online it has cut the amount of First Class mail to shreds, and that is the mail class that has the highest profit margin.
~~NGD

I'd improve the post by having them send all the video games to me.