Postal Service to Make Sunday Deliveries for Amazon.

[elleng]

Source: nyt/reuters

The cash-short United States Postal Service, which has failed to win congressional approval to stop delivering mail on Saturdays to save money, has struck a deal with the online retailer Amazon.com to deliver the company’s packages on Sundays — a first for both, with obvious advantages for each.

For the Postal Service, which lost nearly $16 billion last year, first-class mail delivery, particularly on Saturdays, is often a money loser, whereas package delivery is profitable.

The deal, announced on Sunday and taking effect immediately, in time for the holiday shopping season, gives the Postal Service a chance to take some business from United Parcel Service and FedEx, which do not deliver on Sundays. Now, some orders that would have been handled by either of those carriers for Monday delivery will go through the Postal Service and arrive on Sunday.

The Postal Service said it expected to make more such deals with other merchants, seeking a larger role in the $186 billion e-commerce market. Amazon.com would not say if it would try to arrange Sunday deliveries with other parcel carriers.

For this holiday shopping season, Sunday delivery of Amazon products will be limited to the Los Angeles and New York metropolitan areas, which in New York’s case includes parts of New Jersey and Connecticut. In 2014 it is expected to expand to other cities including Dallas, Houston, New Orleans and Phoenix.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/11/business/postal-service-and-amazon-strike-deal.html?src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fbusiness%2Findex.jsonp

[Lobo27]

1. MAN FUCK ISSA!!!! Such a POS....

[MindMover]

2. Great news .... ty

[Fearless]

3. Good for them and good for us.

[wundermaus]

4. Oh the irony of working on a Sunday for the holy holidays...

Six days work shall be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death. - Exodus 35:2

Ya know, if I were god, (who among you can say I am not?) in the present times, where as worker efficiency is so improved with the aid of technology, I would command that each person only work 4 days a week and be paid a full week's wages. And that when you are older than 55 years of age, that you work only 3 days a week and be paid a full weeks wages. I think that to be better than working people to death while others languish in unemployment and poverty. Oh, and this too, says I, that no person can earn more than 10 times the least of us. That should do for now... in another 2000 years, subject to my revision. Until then, Good Luck.

[groundloop]

16. Im in with your plan

Especially with a 3 day work week when you turn 55. With over 30 years of experience I just know how to get things done without a lot of wasted effort and can probably do as much in 3 days as less experienced engineers do in 4. And besides that, if I had an extra two days a week to do what I wanted I'd most certainly be spending more money on fishing gear and helping the economy.

[PatSeg]

18. Thy will be done!

[csziggy]

38. But the people who hold Saturdays holy have often had to work

Just because one religion calls a particular day holy does not make it universally true, even if that religion happens to hold a majority in this country.

Having seven day work weeks with flexibility for all religions holy days seems much fairer than making a specific religion's holy days a requirement in law.

[wundermaus]

43. You are indeed wise...

Choose your holy day and keep that day sacred.
Even an atheist should have a day free to ponder the empty void where faith would reside.
Can you imagine what a wonderful world that would be?
Your suggestion makes perfect sense.

[tofuandbeer]

5. Brilliant! Although, I'm sorry for the postal workers who have to work Sundays. :(

Hats off to USPS for thinking outside the box!!!

[bemildred]

6. Any work is better than no work these days.

I can hear the whining now from the commercial carriers about "unfair competition" (which means any competition not run as extortionately as they like to do it). Losers who whine about how unfair their losses are.

But the real problem is a corrupt Congress addicted to graft (in the form of "campaign contributions&quot .

[tofuandbeer]

37. Very true.

[PatSeg]

19. A lot of postal workers already do

work on Sundays and at night. I knew a girl who worked graveyard shift at a postal facility. Meanwhile, I'm sure the carriers would rather work Sundays (with Sunday incentives), than to lose their jobs.

[tofuandbeer]

36. +1

[SwankyXomb]

7. Don't UPS and FedEx use the Post Office

for Last Mile delivery anyway?

[bonniebgood]

8. Yes they do Swanky. I have many photos from last year and this year of UPS and Fedex in

front of Post Office unloading their trucks. I had a online buyer tell me they wanted their item shipped UPS or Fedex
because Post Office people don't get paid enough. I really wanted to email her the pictures. I guess they should deliver
on Sundays before Senator Fisenstein and hubby sell off all the post office building.

[devils chaplain]

42. "I had a online buyer tell me they wanted their item shipped UPS or Fedex because..."

"...Post Office people don't get paid enough." WTF! That has the opposite effect. Also, I deliver "UPS" packages all day -- we deliver to every address, every day, so it often behooves UPS to pay us do the "last mile" of smaller package delivery.

[PatSeg]

20. I just read somewhere

that UPS and FedEx use the Postal Service to deliver 400,000,000 packages a year.

[Shibainu]

27. In exchange

UPS moves tons of mail nationally and internationally. The partnership is called "blue and brown make green"

[PatSeg]

33. Interesting

[patricia92243]

9. Will the people working on Sunday's get paid more? Or will they just have more work and

no more money?

[eShirl]

10. they get paid by the hour, and extra for overtime

a few decades ago I was one of a group of temps who were let go because our presence meant the full time employees weren't getting as much overtime as they wanted

[kydo]

11. This is wrong on so many levels

Why does Amazon get special treatment? That's bull shit! More corporate exemptions. "Oh we have to find a way to deliver holiday merchandise so we can make more money."

I bet if the Post Office is able to make any money on this deal Issa will clamp down even harder on them. I'm sick of those turds ruining our country.

[progressoid]

15. Exactly. n/t

[Blue_Tires]

22. +1000

[aptal]

26. Yep, just more proof Corp America is running shit.

[liberal N proud]

12. Is there enough business for the postal service to justify having someone one duty on Sunday?

If live in Buffu, Wyoming and order a package next day and next day is Sunday, will the mail man in Buffu be working to make that delivery?

I agree, it is good news that the postal service is taking on new business, but I wonder if it can be profitable.

[LeftyMom]

23. RTFA. The Sunday deliveries will be in New York and LA,

with a few more major cities to be added next year.

In other words, it's a small pilot program being run in the areas where it's most likely to be profitable.

[VanillaRhapsody]

28. Amazon wants next to same day delivery....

I think their will be plenty of new business...

[CBHagman]

13. Wow, I didn't see this coming...

...and since I try to avoid both UPS and FedEx, I hadn't realized there was no Sunday delivery.

I do hope this turns the tide for the USPS, and it would be good to see the corporations beaten at their own game.

[Nye Bevan]

14. Excellent. Amazon just gets better and better (nt)

[Javaman]

17. So let me get this straight.

UPS, who does the regular delivery gets sunday off while the US Postal Service, which once upon a time had a very strong union, now has to work on sundays?

thank you repukes for further destroying the unions in this country.

No, I'm not happy the US Postal service is "saved" by this. Nothing is "saved" and a great deal is lost.

If Amazon and whomever was the master engineer behind this were so fucking wonderful, the US Postal Service would be getting a piece of the weekly action, not this sunday bullshit.

this is nothing more than cheering for demise of Unions.

(shakes head in wonder)

[devils chaplain]

41. NALC Union Member here... I disagree...

And I'm pretty sure most union members and officials would also. Even a fairly large office would likely have only 1 or 2 employees running parcels on Sundays, and there are plenty of people who want the overtime. If it improves our financial situation then I'm all for it.

[Javaman]

44. I understand what you mean, but you do see my point, right? nt

[SoapBox]

21. I'm still grumbling, since Amazon raised the minimum for free shipping to $35.00

$25 was good...$30 would have worked but upping it by $10 is a lot.

[VanillaRhapsody]

29. Amazon Prime free 2 day shipping is soooo worth it. Not only for shipping

but you get free instant movies and tv show downloads and also titles for your Kindle. It amounts to $6.66 a month!

[GReedDiamond]

24. Immediately, indeed. That explains what I saw yesterday...

...a USPS carrier pulled up to my next door neighbor's house and delivered a package, which I had never seen before on a Sunday.

[Hestia]

39. Exactly the article I was think of too guyton, thanks for the reminder!

[Zorra]

30. I only use the US Postal Service to ship. I never use United Parcel or Fed Ex. IMO,

it is critically important that we keep the Postal Service in existence, and it is sad to see the USPS having to kiss corporate ass in order to compete and stay alive.

[geek tragedy]

31. It's already started--we got a package yesterday.

Wasn't expecting it. I was like 'you guys deliver on Sundays?' Carrier said they just started.

[Dawson Leery]

32. Will the USPS be compensated correctly?

[Digital Puppy]

34. "Cash-Short"

The Post Office makes money and the only reason they are in the state that they are in is because of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act.

As Think Progress (and others) reported (September 28, 2011), "A Manufactured ‘Crisis’: Congress Can Let The Post Office Save Itself Without Mass Layoffs Or Service Reductions"

Both the news media and a number of politicians have claimed recently that the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is in “crisis,” and that it is necessary to lay off thousands of workers or reduce service in order to make the post office fiscally stable. And the Post Office itself has proposed laying off as many as 120,000 employees and withdrawing from federal health care plans in order to navigate upcoming fiscal crunches.

It is true that USPS is facing fiscal challenges — it lost nearly $20 billion over the last four years and is at risk of not being able to meet a $5.5 billion mandated payment to the Treasury at the end of this month (which has been put off six weeks thanks to the last continuing resolution in Congress).

But what has been lost in the political debate over the Post Office is why it is losing this money. Major media coverage points to the rise of email or Internet services and the inefficiency of the post model as the major culprits. While these factors may cause some fiscal pain, almost all of the postal service’s losses over the last four years can be traced back to a single, artificial restriction forced onto the Post Office by the Republican-led Congress in 2006.

At the very end of that year, Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (PAEA). Under PAEA, USPS was forced to “prefund its future health care benefit payments to retirees for the next 75 years in an astonishing ten-year time span” — meaning that it had to put aside billions of dollars to pay for the health benefits of employees it hasn’t even hired yet, something “that no other government or private corporation is required to do.”

Full article here: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/09/28/330524/postal-non-crisis-post-office-save-itself/

[elleng]

35. Absolutely correct.

Welcome.

[mac56]

45. Yup.

http://namebrandketchup.com/2012/11/28/let-us-now-praise-the-united-states-postal-service/

[devils chaplain]

40. I'm a letter carrier...

I was hoping this would be for everywhere, immediately, but apparently it will be a slow roll-out to select large cities. Mail volume has been going down, but our parcel delivery volume has been going off the charts over the past few years. I'm literally buried with them every day, and an extra day of delivery would help even out the flow.

Also, the majority of people who work here would be fine with Sunday parcel delivery. It's quiet, no traffic, and running boxes up to doors here and there is much easier work than lugging a mailbag around town in the rain.