U.S. Postal Service

In January 2014, mobile devices accounted for 55 percent of Internet use – surpassing access by personal computer for the first time. A year later, 75 percent of shoppers use a mobile device to comparison shop while in a retail store. Clearly, we have experienced a sea change in how people...

3D printing continues to disrupt global supply chains, shifting long-distance transportation to last-mile shipping. Delivery and logistics companies around the world are taking notice of these changes and beginning to offer 3D printing services.

Co-opetition (a form of collaboration among competitors) between the U.S. Postal Service and its rivals improves the efficiencies of the postal sector. If efficiencies are great enough, co-opetition can lead to lower shipping prices

Terminal dues, which posts use to pay one another for international deliveries of letters and small packages, have generally been set below domestic postage rates. As a result, the terminal dues system fails to cover many postal operators’ processing and delivery costs for international inbound mail...

To reimburse the Postal Service for unpaid amounts for revenue forgone, Congress promised to pay the Postal Service $29 million a year from 1994 through 2035 without interest. Starting in FY 2011, the $29 million payments were reduced or skipped for 4 years. They have now resumed, but there is a...

Historically the purpose of the postal monopolies has been to ensure the Postal Service has adequate revenue to cover the cost of its universal service obligation. The combination of the decline in letter mail and the price cap on monopoly products has challenged the ability of the monopolies to...

Advertising mail, an important tool for businesses and nonprofit organizations, is critically important to the U.S. Postal Service’s bottom line, generating $19.4 billion in revenue in FY 2015. Most ad mail is sent as Standard Mail, which declined 20 percent in volume during the Great Recession and...

While post offices sold $21 billion worth of money orders in fiscal year 2015, money order sales have plunged 60 percent from their peak in 2000.About 1,200 high volume post offices grew money order sales by at least 10 percent in the past 3 years, showing that improving sales is achievable. Selling...

Despite $216 million in revenue from providing passport services in FY 2015, the Postal Service has been processing fewer passport applications than before. The OIG has identified three areas of customer service that could be improved with simple changes, leading to a greater number of passport...

The future of advertising mail—currently a critical product for the Postal Service’s bottom line—is uncertain. Key external factors impacting future advertising mail volumes are: the national economy, the growth of Internet advertising, and the degree to which Internet advertising displaces...