How Would No More Saturday Mail Delivery Affect Businesses?

Starting August 5, 2013 the U.S. Postal Service will no longer deliver regular First Class mail on Saturdays, though it will still deliver Express Mail packages on those days. A Wall Street Journal article notes that this could present several challenges to businesses that depend on USPS’ services. I’ll discuss them below:

DVDs

This decision will definitely affect Netflix, which depends on USPS to deliver DVDs to customers across the country. While it’s just one less delivery day, it could still push more people to give up the DVD delivery service and instead go with the online streaming service Netflix (or one of its competitors) provides.

Advertisements and Catalogs

It might make just a marginal difference to have one day less a week to send advertisements and catalogs to potential customers. However, this could be enough to make businesses rethink how they reach customers and inspire them to try new things, such as text messages, paid searches, and other online tools to raise awareness.

Magazines

Magazine publishers say that they have been working on a solution to the problem of no more Saturday delivery for some time. That’s good foresight on their part. Many expect to mail issues quicker or find replacement delivery services on Saturdays. Both of these changes could lead to higher costs, though.

Bills

Perhaps this will change the way some companies send bills/invoices, encouraging them to email them to customers and perform more transactions online rather than on paper.

Packages

Package delivery won’t be affected by this decision. In fact, the article notes that Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe wants to push USPS more toward specializing in package delivery rather than letters. I imagine that’s because email, text messaging, and social media have taken the place of traditional mail, in many cases. That’s a smart decision to adapt to the times.

Time for a Change?

If you decide USPS is no longer your best shipping option, you should consider giving Fishbowl Inventory a try. It’s not a shipping company, but it is one of the first inventory management solutions to be UPS certified, which means you can compare UPS shipping rates, print shipping labels, schedule pickups, and send tracking information to customers – all from within Fishbowl Inventory. Sign up for an inventory software demo today to learn more.