Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said the U.S. Postal Service will be forced to initiate “uncomfortable” price increases for market dominant USPS products such as first-class mail, marketing mail and periodicals, while shippers using Parcel Select Ground can benefit from use of cubic pricing.
The USPS saw a slight increase in package volume for fiscal 2019, after its first quarterly decline in years during Q3, as the agency is being challenged by Amazon and FedEx rerouting packages to their own networks. Total mail and package volume declined by 3.8 billion pieces or 2.6%, and the net loss more than doubled to $8.8 billion.
A report from President Trump’s task force on proposed changes to the U.S. Postal Service recommends giving the USPS the ability to establish more market-based pricing for its mail and parcel services, which have not been set “with profitability in mind.”
A group of interested parties including Amazon and the National Retail Federation has formed a coalition to lobby on behalf of the U.S. Postal Service in advance of an Aug. 10 report from a USPS task force formed this spring by President Donald Trump.