No More Saturday Mail
A vast majority of those surveyed both in business and at home say that the loss of Saturday mail delivery will not affect them very much.
But let’s view this in a bit of a different fashion: The USPS is shutting down fully one-sixth of their operational ability and capacity or about 17%. If there is only one thing you will have garnered by reading Aegis all these years, it is that we have a darn good predictive ability as we see so many disasters in our commercial work – we know what precipitates the problems.
What would we do if we could only grocery shop Monday through Friday. Well, as it happens we know the answer and we as consumers would obviously plan more (ha ha) as well as maintain a greater inventory of foodstuffs and supplies. This is will be what happens to businesses that depend upon the mail for receipt and delivery of goods and services. They will carry larger inventories and deliveries to the customers will be – at least 17% later. What is this like, if we were on average 17% later for our appointments in a 16-hour waking day – we would be on average 2.72 hours late for each appointment?
You are getting the picture. An invoice traveling from supplier to customer will take on average at least 1 day more locally and possibly 2 to 3 days more regionally for delivery to occur. The same is true of the payment of the bill will take from 2 to 4 days longer to get to the supplier. The math models put the time delay on sending of the invoice and receipt of payment will actually result in total delays of about 5 days per month (or one additional business week).
And here is where we find an “unintended consequence” related to this whole issue:
Many people, particularly the elderly, will not be ready for these changes and subsequent delays in overall mail delivery. Many of us pay our bills on line – so who cares if there is one less day of mail delivery. But it will matter – and matter a great deal — to those of you who rely on the mail.
Current models predict that there will be an increase of from 7% to 15% of older people slipping into the categories of slow pays or bad credit within 12 months of the cessation of Saturday delivery. Poor credit can affect one’s ability to be hired and to stay hired in a sensitive position or in the financial community. It will affect one’s ability to have access to the best rates on insurance and loans at a minimum.
This will have a disproportionate effect on those businesses that deal with the elderly, on rural populations and businesses that have an overall reliance upon the USPS for correspondence and shipping. It is likely that those business who rely on USPS their satisfaction ratings will be adversely affected as well.
Little things can have significant consequences and have an even larger impact than one might expect due to the interconnected nature of all of our systems. While we understand the budgetary drivers that have precipitated this change, it leaves us wondering whether the USPS is aware of the demographics that will be marginalized by such a change… or if it cares.
