USPS Cuts Saturday Delivery
By: Tina Shively
Updated: February 6, 2013
It's the end of a 150-year-old tradition. Beginning August 1, 2013 seeing your postal carrier on Saturday will be a thing of the past.
The reason? Financial problems. Patrick Donahoe, U.S. Postmaster General and CEO, explained why Wednesday morning at a press conference. "This past year the Post Office posted a financial loss of $15.9 billion. By any measure that is unacceptable and unsustainable."
Post offices will keep their Saturday hours. Mail order medicines, and Priority and Express mail will still go to homes and businesses on Saturday.
Packages will also continue to be delivered.
Donahoe added "We've taken a very hard look at the future of package delivery and think that there is a very strong growth potential in the coming decade, as consumers increasingly use and rely on delivery services especially with the rise of e-commerce."
That's good news for direct mail order company QCI Direct.
The Chili-based company receives orders from two catalogs, on the web and by phone, and sends out close to 4,000 packages a day.
"If we ship out their packages say on a Wednesday or Thursday the fact that people can still maybe get it on a Saturday can help us, so that's great," said Vice President of Merchandising Jeanne Wind.
They say not receiving mail on Saturdays may create a backlog once in awhile (like on a three day weekend), but Wind supports whatever the Postal Service needs to do to stay afloat.
She added "We understand why the Post Office is doing this. We want them to be profitable, we want them to be around a long time we need them as a partner. So they're doing what they have to do."
Cutting Saturday service will save the post office $2 billion a year.
