Sellers who rely on the Postal Service to ship orders may be interested in the progress report it issued last week on its 10-year Delivering for America (DFA) plan. The report listed the DFA’s accomplishments in the first two years of the program and outlined its priorities for year 3.
The progress report addressed changes the USPS had made to reduce disruptions to holiday mail. “DFA identified critical deficiencies in our legacy network that stymie on-time delivery performance. For example, operational shortcomings that routinely caused disruptions during peak holiday seasons were addressed during the plan’s first two years as we expanded capacity, realigned the transportation network, purchased and deployed automation tools, and invested in the postal workforce.”
According to the USPS press release announcing the progress report, “The Delivering for America plan was published March 23, 2021, to transform the Postal Service from an organization in financial and operational crisis to one that is self-sustaining and high performing.”
It said the DFA plan already demonstrated the path forward is achievable, while much work remains to be done to address the Postal Service’s financial and operational performance.
“We are pleased to report that in its first two years DFA has achieved significant and measurable successes. We are improving service, efficiency and our financial outlook — building a new USPS while continuing to meet our universal service mission to deliver mail and packages six and seven days a week.”
The USPS addressed its plans to open larger, centrally located Sorting and Delivery Centers (S&DCs) “to provide faster and more reliable mail and package delivery over a greater geographic area.” Not everyone is convinced that approach is the right one. The USPS said it had opened six S&DCs and is currently evaluating over 100 new S&DC locations nationwide.
Save the Post Office has reported extensively on the USPS plans to rework its operations, such as the impact of its new approach to S&DCs in this April blog post.
PostCom (the Association for Postal Commerce) reacted to the 33-page report by requesting “additional clarifying data and information from the Postal Service regarding the recent and planned network changes associated with the Postal Service’s Delivering for America strategic plan (“DFA” or “Plan”).”
In its filing, PostCom wrote, “As one of the purposes of the DFA is to achieve financial sustainability for the Postal Service, it is critical to understand the cost and revenue projections and data underlying the plan and how those estimates have changed over time to evaluate whether DFA initiatives are achieving their intended outcomes.”
The USPS progress report indicates the Postal Service is moving full speed ahead on its Delivering for America plan, listing 11 priorities for the year ahead:
1) Modernizing Our National Network Region by Region
2) Expediting Local Service Through New S&DCs
3) Electrifying and Deploying Our New Vehicle Fleet
4) Elevating The Employee Experience and Career Pathways
5) Continued Refinement of Our Organization To Become A World Class Logistics and Delivery Service Provider
6) Offering New, Competitive Products and Services For Customers
7) Optimizing our Ground Transportation Network
8) Pursuing CSRS Reform
9) Stabilizing Operations to Improve Service Reliability
10) Positioning USPS as The Greenest Way to Mail and Ship
11) Investing in Modern Technology Solutions for Our Facilities, Customers and Employees
Number 6 is especially relevant to online sellers as it addresses changes to offerings they may use, including Parcel Select, First-Class Package Service, and Priority Mail:
“As we seek to grow revenue, we will continue to streamline our products and services – including the national roll-out of USPS Ground Advantage.
“This new product simplifies our package options for customers by incorporating three products – USPS Retail Ground, Parcel Select Ground, and First-Class Package Services – into one, USPS Ground Advantage. This new product will provide competitive pricing and offer 2-day to 5-day delivery for businesses of all sizes and the American people.
“We will also identify opportunities to upgrade Priority Mail service levels to strengthen our product offering. As we pursue new shipping solutions, we will continue to offer new promotions to encourage innovative and effective uses of mail that enable relevancy.”
You can find the press release with a link to the full report on the USPS newsroom.
To DeJoy its all fun and games BUT his great carriers still haven’t learned to read addresses when delivering the mail. I’m tired of having to deliver it so now I just send it to the postal inspectors at out sectional center with a note. DELIVERED TO WRONG ADDRESS AGAIN.
@GetAGrip,
The USPS Postal Inspectors don’t care one iota that your mail is misdirected. All they care about is misdeeds of it’s employees. The could give a rat’s posterior about the EFFICIENCY of the USPS employees.
Having said that, the current USPS positively SUCKS. I can say that because I’ve been selling online for twenty years plus; twelve of those years working for the USPS at a mid-sized P&DC, a Processing and Distribution Center…
@nagmashdriver
If your so smart and know so much then please explain this. I keep getting calls from the local post master saying please do not send mis delivered mail to the inspectors within 2 days of sending it. If they pay no attention then explain why the post master goes ballistic when I do this. My reply to him is then make sure the morons delivering the mail perform the service they are being paid for. Oh and by the way I worked for many many years at a sectional center with all those postal inspectors and they do care.
Dear GAG,
Your local postmaster is angry at you for two reasons, both should be obvious to you:
1) He/she is getting pissed because the PIs are angry at him. Again, the Postal Inspection Service doesn’t give a rat’s ass about efficiency problems, only LAW ENFORCEMENT problems.
2) Your postmaster is a feckless, spineless middle-manager just trying to finish out his twenty+ years and get his pension. He doesn’t give a crap about your mail and is embarrassed that you are calling him out on his shit.
If you worked at a P&DC or P&DF (now called a “Sectional Sorting Center”, still a big building where the mail is sorted) then you know this to be true.
Don’t get me wrong, GAG, I’m totally on your side. I have a friend in a neighboring town who has the same fight with his dipshit carrier and therefore, his supervisor of carriers and above him, the postmaster.
I still have the Postal Inspectors number on my phone even though I separated from them in 2012. I would never dream of calling them to report a dipshit worker and in fact, they could prosecute me for abuse of a government (YES, I know the USPS isn’t Federal Government since 1970 but who are we kidding?) asset, i.e. a hotline.
You are much better off writing a calm and articulate letter to the dipshits in Washington and then publishing said letter all over the Web. I doubt anything will happen but it will make you feel better and embarrass them, much as I did when I wrote Josh Silverman of Etsbay over his dumbass moves a year ago last month…
I don’t need to feel better as I feel fine. I enjoy the postmaster being all pissed off at me. I will continue to do as I have been doing. Sooner of later the dip shit will realize its easier to correct the problem. Hence no more nasty letters from the inspectors. I could care less who gets upset. They need to do their job or be fired. Its fun to watch as everything has been documented. They can kiss my backside.
Mis-directed mail. I had a package that was 50 miles away from me and to be delivered. I live in Wisconsin. But before that package could be delivered it had to take a vacation to West Virginia and Kentucky before coming back up to Wisconsin. That is ridiculous. Think of the money that could be saved if packages were actually being shipped directly to their destination.
Just a couple of questions is your mailbox labeled with your number and the last names of people receiving mail there????
WHERE ARE THE MISSING PACKAGES? Why do you keep losing mails, USPS? You suck!
Here’s my scary mail story: One day I get a letter delivered to Kathy someone – I have a Kathy someone at my house. I live at 2314 S “A” St my town. I get the mail in and realize it’s not my Kathy – it’s a Kathy that lives at 2314 S “B”.. Wow I think that’s really weird and being the good neighbor I decide to deliver it myself since it was only 1 block over.
I go there and knock on the door – thought since things were so similar I might introduce myself and make sure some of Kathy’s mail hasn’t been getting delivered to their address.
Big mistake. A girl comes out of the house since she saw me getting out of the car. she comes to the gate to welcome me with both arms raised up to hug me which I declined – she might have been French since I could clearly see she had never shaved her armpits ever. She looked about 25. I explain to her that I got her mail and the address situation. She was surprised sorta but informed they got packages all the time that didn’t belong to them but she thanked me for her mail. Her mother came out now to see what was happening – rather strange woman and I also noted that there was another girl in the window staring out. She actually looked like one of those scary clowns with lipstick smeared all over her face. They invited me in which I declined and turned to leave stating I had food on the stove at home. The first girl then told me to wait a bit – ran back into the house and came out with a present for me. It was a used hash pipe which I again decline and now I was running back to my car.
As they say no good deed goes unpunished. I return all misdelivered mail directly to the PO now.
You can not make this stuff up.
I like this 10 year plan.. Maybe cut it in half to get more cost savings: replace the postal service with drones and AI. If we start with Dejoy first we could save about 20 billion lol