USPS pushes peak parcel volume online

As millions of Americans prepare to cook, commute, and commune with each other this week over the Thanksgiving break, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is bracing for the week of Dec.16, which is predicted to be its busiest mailing, shipping, and delivery week of the year.

The Postal Service's busiest time of the season is two weeks before Christmas, as customer mailing and shipping traffic at local Post Offices is expected to increase beginning Dec. 9. During the week of Dec. 16, the Postal Service expects to process and deliver nearly 2.5 billion pieces of first-class mail, including greeting cards, the agency said Monday.

That rush is partly because the holiday peak schedule is compressed in 2019, with one less week on the calendar for shopping and shipping than last year, thanks to Thanksgiving falling especially late in the month.

In response, USPS is promoting its online options, encouraging consumers to act online to ease the process of handling USPS' full holiday volume, an estimated delivery of 800 million packages between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day. That figure is down from the more than 900 million packages USPS delivered between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day in 2018 and the 850 million packages it handled over that period in 2017, but still represents a big bump in business.

Faced with that daunting task, it seems that even the stalwart professionals at the agency can get a little goofy with their slogans, including the following phrases in their latest press release:

• "ship gifts in your jammies"
• "there's no need to panic because you can 'Click-N-Chill,' 
• "even if you go a bit overboard on Cyber Monday, We Deliver for Yule"

And remember, beginning this year, mail and packages weighing more than 10 ounces and/or are more than a half-inch thick using stamps as postage cannot be dropped into a collection box or left for a carrier to pick up, but must be taken to a window clerk at a Post Office.