Mail remains a vital form of commerce and communication despite the plethora of alternatives today but the business model of the U.S. Postal Service must change to reflect today’s realities, Postmaster General Jack Potter said at the DM Days conference Wednesday.
“The postal service will remain strong and healthy in the near term and that’s the good news,” said Potter. “Yet, like you, our business model has changed dramatically and will continue to change. Yes, we still have the monopoly on first class mail, but that monopoly is not what it was 25 or 30 years ago when hard copy first class mail played a much larger role in the day-to-day communications of America.”
“When the postal service was established 35 years ago the fundamental principle on which our finances were framed that mail would continue to grow as population and households grew,” he told the lunchtime audience.
But now that advertising mail volume has eclipsed first class, the USPS has been working with Congress and the administration to develop a more modern, business model that will serve commerce and the American people for years to come,” he said.
At present, both postal reform bills H.R. 22 and S. 662 have passed the Committees in their respective houses but neither has yet been scheduled for a vote. Potter said he remained hopeful the bills would pass this year.
“But regardless of the legislative outcome, there’s one thing that is clear to me: that is Americans’ confidence in the mail remains high,” he said, dismissing predictions in the late 1990s that “snail mail” would fade away quickly. “Well it hasn’t, and it hasn’t for several good reasons, Potter said.
“First, Americans trust mail, they trust mail’s privacy and privacy’s always been a hallmark of America’s postal service,” he said, referring to the spate of electronic data breaches in the past few months.
“And most importantly, mail works,” he said.
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