The U.S. Postal Service has awarded two contracts worth $71 million for a study of the public’s mailing habits and for computer equipment to improve its retail operations.
One of those contracts, worth $4 million, was awarded to NuStats International, Austin, TX, to study 5,300 households over the next four years to determine how they use the mails, from personal correspondence to shopping by mail.
No catalog or other direct marketing companies are slated to participate in the four-year long study.
Participants in the national survey will be randomly selected. Postal officials said they will use the results to improve existing services, predict what future services may be needed, and to “better understand” customer needs and wants.
The other contract, for $67 million, went to the NCR Corp. for what postal officials call the Stage IIA Point-of-Service ONE (POS-ONE) program which is designed to compete with commercial mail services through the improvement of retail facilities at local post offices. The contract calls for NCR to install some 14,000 new computerized terminals at various postal facilities.
All told, 73,000 POS terminals will be installed at some 20,000 postal locations, replacing 63,000 which are considered outdated.
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