Happy Holidays from the USPS Postmaster General

USPS Postmaster General Louis DeJoy wished employees and customers happy holidays in a new video message published on Monday. He boasted that the US Postal Service is delivering letters and packages on time and is ready to do so throughout the remainder of December.

The season is a far cry from last year, DeJoy’s first as PMG when he was blamed for delays stemming from his handling of an unprecedented surge in mail and packages caused by pandemic shopping and a greater number of citizens voting by mail in the presidential election. (Complaints of delays had actually started in the summer last year.)

The USPS is expecting this week to be its busiest of the year, with nearly 2.3 billion First-Class Mail pieces (including greeting cards and packages) expected to be processed and delivered this week.

Last week, the USPS published a video on LinkedIn of the installation of a new sorting machine, part of its investments in 2021 that the Postmaster General said was paying off this peak season.

You can find the video message from the postmaster on the USPS website. A transcript and video from YouTube follow below:

Happy Holidays.

The 650,000 women and men of the United States Postal Service have worked year-round to prepare for the holiday mailing season.

We are delivering the nation’s letters and packages on time… And we are ready to do so throughout the remainder of December.

We have invested in our business by adding new high-speed package processing machines.

We have acquired more than 100 new facilities.

And we have expanded the workforce by over 60,000 full-time employees and 40,000 seasonal employees.

These investments are paying off with the average time to deliver a mailpiece heading into the holidays at 2.7 days.

When sending your mail and packages with the Postal Service, please be sure to get them in by our published shipping dates. You can find these dates by going to USPS.com.

And finally, please join me in thanking our nation’s postal workers and wishing them a great holiday season.

They do an amazing job every day.

On behalf of all of us at the United States Postal Service, we wish you a safe and happy holiday season.

Ina Steiner

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.