John Callan, CEO at Ursa Major Associates, joins me to talk about the US Postal Service as well as the state of the US letters and parcels markets. We cover:
- Key takeaways from the Postal Reform Act, including impact on delivery as well as headline financial impacts
- The new vehicle contract… and electric vehicles!
- Volatility of fuel prices
- US parcel volume trends
- Bringing fulfilment centres closer to the consumer, and issues with 3PLs throttling volumes
- Carrier consolidation via mergers and acquisitions
- Consumers demanding greater visibility of their deliveries
- Are we applying “pizza delivery” standards to products that don’t need to be delivered so fast?
- Microfulfilments centres and dark stores
- Developments with the USPS Parcel Select service, and FedEx and Amazon trying to shift volumes to their own networks
- Amazon pumping parcel volumes into its DSP network
- USPS losing the personal connection with residents - cluster box delivery
- Letter volume trends
- Delivery standards
- Parcel lockers in the USA - can carrier-neutral lockers work in the USA?
- Why the USPS’s own parcel locker network failed