Slashdot Mirror
E-Commerce's Biggest Obstacle May Be Slow Postal Services (thestreet.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader rudy_wayne writes:
J.C. Penney CEO Marvin Ellison recently said that e-commerce companies' biggest challenge is that they are all expanding their businesses and pushing for faster delivery, but UPS, Fedex and especially the United States Postal Service aren't able to keep up, at least not at same cost that exists today, because they're not increasing their delivery capacity at the same rate e-commerce is growing, He said this will cause a supply and demand issue "that's going to be apparent here pretty soon."
Make in-store pickup really, really fast. Many brick and mortar stores make it too slow. So that is one of the main reasons why they are losing out to Amazon. If it takes half a day or more from me hitting "buy" on the site and the local store putting together the order, that's too slow for what it is. Most of the time I go into brick and mortar stores in our area, they don't have that much volume. There's no excuse for them to be slow. As far as I'm concerned, they're slitting their throats while Amazon sits there like \_()_/ while chucking tens of billions in low-hanging fruit into their cart.
The 3-generation pension thing is a myth. They are simply required to fund the benefits that they promise existing workers given standard actuarial tables which estimate lifetime. I would like this rule extended to the entire government, as we are sitting on a liability time bomb. My beef with the treatment of the USPS is I don't think congress phased in the new rules slowly enough for the business to adjust - but no matter what it was going to be traumatic.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The economy has benefited hugely from a reliable flat-fee mail delivery system. Like many taken-for-granted benefits we enjoy I didn't realize that until I did some consulting work for a company operating in a part of the world with a unreliable postal system
Every time UPS gets a new driver, they stop delivering packages to my house. I'm ... lucky, in that I have an even numbered house on the odd side of the street and about an eighth of a mile off relative to the rest of the numbering system. Google maps has the right location and FedEx never has a problem, but each and every time UPS gets a new driver, I have to call them and tell them to have their driver look up my address on Google maps. Then the package arrives the next day.
Think you guys have it bad there in the US? Try postal service in Brazil. It's a state-owned monopoly that exploits people with extremely expensive pricing, and for products that are coming from outside the country (like chinese products bought on eBay and other sites), the review process to charge for importation taxes can take anywhere from a month to half an year - regularly. Yes, I'm not talking about extremes here, this is the average timeframe.
You never know what you are going to get, there is no tracking system for that, there's no online communication system (like really, when there are taxes to be paid you get sent a notice via snail mail, there is no other option), you can end up getting charged over double the cost of the product plus shipping, you have to go get the product yourself from a designated post office that's oftenly not the closest to your home address, and taxes need to be paid in cash - no other forms of payment accepted.
It's pure unbridled exploitation from a monopoly.
Things like same day delivery or guaranteed next day delivery like what Amazon do is pretty much impossible given Brazil's infrastructure. And the taxation structure is probably the reason why Amazon in Brazil never went above selling eBooks, plus bureaucracy and other crap. And services like Blue Apron, Dollar Shave Club, among others are kinda impossible to work well here.
I've seen packages of mine getting sent to the other side of the country or even to other countries due to postal service error.
But of course, there's absolutely zero pressure for the service to ever get better since it works that way.
I don't know why it is, but many of the companies that I buy stuff from over the Internet assume automatically that I want it delivered "tomorrow" or within 3 days at the most. If I needed stuff that fast, I would go to the store and buy it there, or I would have bought it all a month ago in preparation for what I am doing today.
So when I buy stuff over the Internet, it usually doesn't matter when it comes and I prefer that they ship it by Canada Post, or USPS, or the Royal Mail, whatever. I am not in a hurry and surface mail is just fine. We get very good mail delivery where I live and if a parcel is too big for my box then I go to the Post Office to pick it up, knowing that it is safe and secure.
What really bugs me is having to deal with the so-called courier companies who invariably come while I am not at home and leave stuff on the porch or leave a notice on my doorknob. They say they will "attempt delivery" again tomorrow but, No, no one comes even though I have made a point of staying at home, alert to the driveway and door. Then I end up having to drive all the way into the city to pick up my parcel at the courier's office anyway. Give me the Post Office any day!
Let those who need 72-hour delivery pay extra for it and leave me alone with much cheaper shipping charges and delivery within two or three weeks. I am fine with that.
We have two locations and we receive amazon deliveries many times per week. At one location the USPS driver brings the mail (including packages) up a flight of stairs to our main office - very nice service. I assume free coffee, air conditioning, and an available guest bathroom also help get our packages in the building.
At our other location (also up a flight of stairs) our USPS driver never comes in the building, and if the package is too large to fit in our giant mailbox, it goes back to the post office for pickup - which results in me calling Amazon and telling them that if I wanted to pickup things I ordered, I would simply buy them from a brick and mortar retailer.
USPS does what they do very cheaply - and their delivery volumes are truly staggering, but their last mile performance does seem inconsistent.
Maybe Amazon should just buy the USPS?
For a long time the US postal service has been losing money, they posted a 5.6 billion loss in 2016.
There are three main reasons for them posting a loss:
1. They are the only division of the federal government required to fully fund their pension plan, rather than switching to a "cash balance" plan.
2. They are the only division of the federal government required to fully fund their medical plan, called "Mail Handler's Benefits Program". This is because they have to accept all federal employees who want to enroll in it (rather than private insurance offered in their own division). This is also the medical plan for all members of congress and their dependents.
3. Their bulk mail delivery operates at a negotiated loss. Which wouldn't be a problem, had the Direct Marketing Association not turned around, and turned all the flyers that used to be sent separately into one "coupon brochure" by making an outside "wrapper" page that folds in half, and the other pieces go inside it. Including things like the Trader Joe's Catalog that comes once a month or so.
So yes, they are posting a loss, because the DMA intermediated between them and the flyer senders to take all the profit, while leaving the post office to do the deliver ... on one piece.
The fix is to raise their bulk rates -- which they are prohibited from doing.
Amazon has been using their own contractors to deliver packages in my area for a while now. From a customer's perspective, my packages arrive exactly within the timeframe as specified by Amazon.
Their technique there is to use their own contractors to deliver to places that are easy to get to, and the USPS to deliver to the ones that are hard to get to.
That business "opportunity to improve" relies on the U.S. Post office to work.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
> Unfunded pensions are a ponzi scheme that should have never been allowed. I think there's a middle ground between fully funded and unfunded. Or maybe companies should be forced to buy "pension insurance." :)
Or maybe it's just something we should have the government do (ie, Social Security).
We live in an average neighbourhood in an average city in the US with an average numbered house.
UPS is the only sevice that regulary delivers my packages to the wrong place or tells me that my house doesn't exist.
USPS and FedEx have no problem but UPS seem to be staffed by idiots.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
It's amazing the USPS is as good as it is, all things considered.
Absolutely, everyone like to pick on the USPS but if you were to say to someone who didn't know what the USPS was that one could stick a piece of paper in a envelope and legibly (or not) write an address on it and stick it in a nondescript looking box outside your home with only a little red flag to alert someone of your intentions and have it picked up and delivered anywhere in the U.S. usually within a couple of days and at the most a week to another nondescript box which may (or may not) have said legible address on it for all of $.50 they would call you crazy.