Leo Tudela, director of the U.S. Postal Service’s Asia-Pacific Relations, Global Business, told the Variety in an interview that there has been a remarkable drop in first class mail deliveries, but the deliveries for parcels and packages rose up as more and more people shop online.
“It’s a see-saw situation between the delivery of first class mails and packages,” Tudela said.
Mail or first class deliveries, which account for about 60 percent of their business, went down as orders for goods purchased online soared.
“We lost the bulk of the mail for brochures, pamphlets and other advertising materials due to the Internet and these account for at least 30 percent of our income-generating revenues,” Tudela said.
More and more people are ordering merchandise through the Internet.
“There are so many online markets now like Ebay and others and they offer all kinds of goods,” Tudela said.
The USPS is also anticipating a huge drop in mail deliveries this holiday seasons due to the economic crisis.
Tudela said they have already lost about 9 billion pieces of deliveries in packages, letters and parcels this year.
“The Internet is a threat to the delivery of first class mails but it increased our parcels and packages deliveries,” he added.
Tudela believes that Internet won’t completely take over the mail delivery business.
“We are still surviving, although we are faced with other challenges like the increase in fuel prices,” Tudela said.
He added that a penny’s increase in oil prices creates a huge impact on their operations.
“We ship about 40 percent of the total 212 billion pieces of mail parcels worldwide, and we operate 225,000 vehicles to deliver mail. One penny increase in gasoline prices translates into about $8 million in additional delivery costs,” he said.
Tudela was here on Saipan for a two-day meeting of postmasters from Micronesia last week.
