U.S. Postal Service

Post office foot traffic varies widely. The 450 largest locations have on average about as much foot traffic as Best Buy stores, while the next 7,000 largest have about as much traffic as CVS locations. An OIG survey shows that Millennials visit post offices more often than older generations, but...

The U.S. Postal Service’s universal service obligation (USO), which establishes what mail services the Postal Service must provide, lacks a clear, comprehensive definition. The current USO is assumed to be a hodgepodge of various legal requirements and regulations that, in most cases, provide only...

As consumers and small businesses increasingly use computers, smartphones, tablets and other devices to buy and sell goods, there is a growing demand for flexible ways to buy services to ship these goods. The Postal Service lags behind its primary competitors in offering technology-savvy customers...

As the U.S. Postal Service continues to address its difficult financial situation, some have argued that overall efficiency would improve if the Postal Service were to focus exclusively on the first and last mile (collection and delivery). While the introduction of workshare discounts has led to...

Throughout its history, the U.S. Postal Service has been part of the nation’s vital infrastructure, facilitating economic activity, improving quality of life, and benefiting wider society in a variety of ways. But the Postal Service is also mandated to operate like a business, which can pose...

Increasingly, companies large and small are moving toward flexible workforce policies, which allow employees, among other things, to adjust their work schedules to their personal lives as much as possible. In general, the strategic value of such policies is that they help employees establish a...

Emerging markets offer posts a chance to diversify and support their core postal mission. We recently looked at four of these emerging markets – international mail forwarding, continuity shipping, digital printing, and private locked bags – and found the first three offer revenue generating...

The U.S. Postal Service is required to prefund its long-term pension and retiree healthcare liabilities. These liabilities, currently estimated at almost $404 billion, are based on assumptions that are highly uncertain and changeable. Our recent white paper evaluates these assumptions and other...

The U.S. Postal Service has a corporate brand. Its attributes include reliability, convenience, value, and tradition, among other things. Brand valuation is a management tool increasingly used by successful firms to get the most financial benefit from their brands. But unlike many other businesses...