in the NYC and LA metro areas. But only for Amazon.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/11/business/postal-service-and-amazon-strike-deal.html

Personally, I think this should be offered to all senders willing to pay, not just Amazon, or shot down by Congress. A government agency sucking the dick of a specific private corporation so overtly is unacceptable.

Amazon and eBay already have special deals with USPS. Then there's the "e-Packet" shipping from foreign countries to America for "qualified wholesalers" . . . so USPS doesn't just "go down" on Amazon.

I didn't think those were deals with USPS as much as with private shippers who use USPS for the "last mile" of delivery.

whats the problem here? amazon and ebay have the volume to make paying for sunday delivery service feasible where everyone makes money, including postal workers doing a sunday route.

Personally, I can think of other things to get angry about vs the prospect of receiving my amazon order on sunday instead of monday, though Im not benefiting from the trial service, but you are.

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Granting entrenched corporations a monopoly on a gov't service (Sunday delivery via USPS) hurts newer and smaller competitors. If they want to give Amazon a year's trial then open it to all who can pay, then that's fine.

this is a reality of anything in the business world. A big company doing the volume will pay a lot less for something than a small company that only uses or sells limited items based on volume alone.
I might sell company X my custom widget at 2 dollars per if they are buying 50k units, but ill sell company Y, who is much smaller and only wants 2k widgets, the same item for 6 dollars per.

That includes services like delivery services. The US postal service has been losing money for years, sunday delivery gives them a competitive edge that might mean less subsidization of mail delivery, certainly in heavily populated areas. I have no problem with that.

You say open it to all who can pay, and thats exactly what will happen. But those who can pay are the ones with the volume to make it worth it to them.

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Sunday deliveries will be expensive for the USPS to accomplish, so this cost will be passed on to Amazon.

Now the bottom line is will this add to Amazon's bottom line? What percentage of their costs will be Sunday deliveries? Will customers be attracted to Amazon by more than low prices but by the fact that they could receive their purchase one day sooner?

Will Amazon make up the additional cost to them by adding a few cents to each package they ship, or will the cost of two day shipping increase to everyone just so those living in the test markets can receive their packages sooner?

If there is not a profit to Amazon in this venture I doubt it would be going forth. As far as the USPS picking up additional business goes I do not see the harm in this. UPS or FedEx are under no restraints that would prevent them from offering the same service.

UPS and FedEx are also not gov't agencies. If USPS wants to negotiate a bulk rate with Amazon and give them a volume discount, fine. But locking other vendors out entirely is unacceptable, and I hope this ends up tied up in court for years

^ Agreed, unless, of course the costs are verifiably fully supported by the major vendors, plus a reasonable profit tacked on the top. In that case, let em do it.

Even if they are fully supported, it would cost USPS little extra to open the service to all vendors and charge commensurately with a bulk discount (or lack thereof).

where are you reading that this is not the plan? you seem to have read something about an exclusive deal, and no one else can participate, but the article states-

Looks like if you have the volume and the cash to make it work, the USPS will be open to it. I see nothing to justify your anger on the issue.

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Volume shouldn't matter. Pricing should be inversely proportional to volume, but small-business merchants should *NOT* be shut out entirely. If the infrastructure for Sunday delivery exists, it shouldn't matter who the sender is.

Volume is ALL that matters. Why should an organism of the US government create favored rules for small businesses based on small volume that no privately owned company would grant or make money delivering? This is yet another way for USPS to continue to be run at a huge loss.

The USPS is already bleeding money daily based on just these types of compromises, I do not think we should hamstring it further by making sunday delivery highly unprofitable for the USPS.

Makes perfect sense that the companies that have the volume make the deal, and everyone wins. I can wait another day for a mom and pop item to arrive.


With the logic of making it open for any business regardless of volume, for example you would require a bakery to stay open 24 hours because someone MIGHT want to buy a cupcake at 2 am.

Right now the bakery is willing to stay open because 60k cupcakes can be delivered at 2am. Everyone makes money

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Wrong. If the infrastructure for Sunday delivery already exists, it would be profitable to offer the service to ANYONE at a higher cost. Kind of like the bakery being open from 4am to 6am for bulk pickup, but if an individual wanted to pay 5x the normal price for a cake, they'd be happy to oblige them.

Incidentally, I have no problem with gov't services "bleeding" money. That's why they're "services" not fawking "for profit corporations." If politicians had the balls to roll back Idiot Chimp Dubya's tax cuts, this wouldn't even be an issue.

once again, where are you assuming that this service won't be offered to anyone willing to pay for it? The article says nothing about exclusive one company only deals, it just says amazon has come to a deal and the USPS is looking to tap into more of the market. Im sure if someone is willing to pay though the nose, they can get it done, at least in the test areas shown. you are getting bent out of shape without cause here.

Relax.

The USPS is a government service that could easily be either profitable or break even since its fee based already. It is hamstrung from this for a host of reasons, largely pension payments.

It has to subsidized by the government, so even after paying for my postage, my taxes also go towards keeping the USPS up and running. I see no negative reason with allowing it to become competitive with other parcel services, nothing stops them from being competitive back either.

If the USPS can close the operations deficit gap by this type of service, then all the better.

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