USPS Same-Day?

From Yahoo:

"Cash-strapped post office tests same-day delivery"

Emboldened by rapid growth in e-commerce shipping, the cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service is moving aggressively this holiday season to start a premium service for the Internet shopper seeking the instant gratification of a store purchase: same-day package delivery. Teaming up with major retailers, the post office will begin the expedited service in San Francisco on Dec. 12 at a price similar to its competitors. If things run smoothly, the program will quickly expand next year to other big cities such as Boston, Chicago and New York. It follows similar efforts by eBay, Amazon.com, and most recently Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which charges a $10 flat rate for same-day delivery. The delivery program, called Metro Post, seeks to build on the post office's double-digit growth in package volume to help offset steady declines in first-class and standard mail. Operating as a limited experiment for the next year, it is projected to generate between $10 million and $50 million in new revenue from deliveries in San Francisco alone, according to postal regulatory filings, or up to $500 million, if expanded to 10 cities. The filings do not reveal the mail agency's anticipated expenses to implement same-day service, which can only work profitably if retailers have enough merchandise in stores and warehouses to be quickly delivered to nearby residences in a dense urban area. The projected $500 million in potential revenue, even if fully realized, would represent just fraction of the record $15.9 billion annual loss that the Postal Service reported last week. But while startups in the late 1990s such as Kozmo.com notably failed after promising instant delivery, the Postal Service's vast network serving every U.S. home could put it in a good position to be viable over the long term. The retail market has been rapidly shifting to Internet shopping, especially among younger adults, and more people are moving from suburb to city, where driving to a store can be less convenient. "Customers do like same-day delivery when it gets very close to a holiday or it otherwise becomes too late to shop," said Jim Corridore, analyst with S&P Capital IQ, which tracks the shipping industry. "But while the Postal Service has the ability to deliver to any address, they are not always known for their speed. To increase their speed might prove to be a much more complex offering than they're thinking about." Under the plan, the Postal Service is working out agreements with at least eight and as many as 10 national retail chains for same-day delivery. The mail agency says nondisclosure agreements don't allow it to reveal the companies. But given the somewhat limited pool of large-scale retailers — they must have a physical presence in 10 or more big U.S. cities to be a postal partner — the list is expected to include department stores, sellers of general merchandise, clothiers, even perhaps a major e-commerce company or two. Consumers will have until 2 or 3 p.m. to place an online order with a participating retailer, clicking the box that says "same-day delivery" and making the payment. Postal workers then pick up the merchandise from nearby retail stores or warehouses for delivery to homes between 4 and 8 p.m. that day. In San Francisco, the post office will closely track work hours and travel, which could quickly add to costs depending on traffic, total package volume or the proximity of merchandise in a delivery area.

^ I don't think the USPS will be able to pull this off. They are barely able to handle delivering mail overnight  (I have had cases where they couldn't even do that and I got a refund and there was no weather-related issues.) It seems like a desperate act from a desperate company. Congress needs to make the USPS a full government agency again and fix it from the top-down. ^

http://news.yahoo.com/cash-strapped-post-office-tests-same-day-delivery-140931589.html