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Postal News
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 29, 2002
Contact: (202) 268-2155
Release No. 02-082
Parcel Select 'Early Bird' Hours Offer
Same-Day Delivery In Many Locations;
Facilities, Hours, Now On-Line At usps.com
Same-Day Delivery In Many Locations;
Facilities, Hours, Now On-Line At usps.com
WASHINGTON - The Postal Service's Chief Operating Officer announced that package customers taking advantage of "early-bird" Parcel Select Destination Delivery Unit acceptance hours will find that many locations will provide same- or next-day delivery. In making the announcement, Pat Donahoe also said that customers can now find postal facility drop locations on-line at www.usps.com.
"Parcel Select mailers asked and we responded," Donahoe explained. "They wanted early-bird hours, and we wanted their business, so we opened at five in the morning," he said referring his late September directive to expand hours among these large facilities that serve 6,000 ZIP Codes. "Many of the packages dropped during our early bird hours will be delivered the same day, with the rest the next day," he added.
Donahoe said the web listing is an enhancement to last month's customer convenience initiative that opened the doors of more than 1,000 of the nation's largest postal facilities to Parcel Select customers well before sunrise.
While many of these offices are offering longer acceptance hours, he clarified that at a minimum, these facilities will accept Parcel Select drop-shipments between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. with few exceptions.
"We're doing whatever it takes to make it easier for parcel consolidators to bring us their business," he explained, "and as a value-added enticement, Electronic Delivery Confirmation™ is provided to Parcel Select customers at no additional charge."
Parcel Select service allows high-volume shippers to earn discounts by bypassing processing operations to enter parcels into the mail stream as close as possible to the delivery post office. Early-bird hours benefit the mailers because it allows the mail to be introduced into the system earlier in the process.
Parcel consolidators primarily target large- and medium-sized business who ship to residential customers. They combine numerous mailings to achieve greater discounts.
The Postal Service helped jump-start the parcel consolidator business by introducing Parcel Select Service in January 1999, and today it represents 71 percent of the Postal Service's parcel post volume. Parcel Select customers take advantage of three levels of savings based on where packages are introduced into the system: Bulk Mail Centers (BMC), Sectional Center Facilities (SCF), and at Destinating Delivery Units (DDU), commonly referred to as a local post office, where customers achieve the greatest savings. Last year Parcel Select's DDU growth rate was approximately 50 percent.
"We believe we are on the right track for increasing package market share by responding to our customer needs," he added. "It's good for our consolidator customers; it's good for their package shipping customers, and it's good for the Postal Service."
Customers can view and download the listing at www.usps.com by clicking "Destination Delivery Unit" to download Excel spreadsheets. The Postal Service's Rapid Information Bulletin Board System (RIBBS) also provides a link at www.ribbs.usps.gov. Go to the Mailers News section and click the October 18, 2002 link.
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Since 1775, the U.S. Postal Service has connected friends, families, neighbors and businesses by mail. It is an independent federal agency that makes deliveries to 137 million addresses every day and is the only service provider to deliver to every address in the nation. The Postal Service receives no taxpayer dollars for routine operations, but derives its operating revenues solely from the sale of postage, products and services. With annual revenues of more than $65 billion, it is the world's leading provider of mail and delivery services, offering some of the most affordable postage rates in the world. The U.S. Postal Service delivers more than 43 percent of the world's mail volume - some 207 billion letters, advertisements, periodicals and packages a year - and serves 7 million customers each day at its 38,000 retail locations nationwide.
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