Death Of A Postman

In our neighbourhood one can still see the posties cycling around making snail mail deliveries; sadly they are a dying breed.

A couple of decades ago it was possible to set the time by the regular nature of their beat but no more.

In Singapore weekend deliveries have now completely ceased as the volumes of traditional mail have dropped dramatically.

Recently release figures from the States show that at th end of June, year-to-date total mail volume was down 4.9% from 2009 to nearly 129 billion pieces.  This represents a drop of 700 million pieces in the last quarter which in the long term is simply not sustainable.  The US Postal service lost $2.5 billion in June and the revenue trends show the situation worsening.

While it may be comforting to blame this on the recession, the real reason is that one form of communication has replaced another.

I recall stock market advice given more than a decade ago to invest in courier firms.  At first glance this may seem to be going against the global trend of less snail mail volume.  The rationale is the the growth of e-commerce would see an increased need for home deliveries and so it has proved to be.

Though email has supplanted the written letter there are still quite distinct usage patterns  vary widely as this analysis from Rackspace shows.

The prevailing advice is not to send out marketing email at these peak times as the "delete" button is likely to be fully operational.  Better to time the delivery for the start of the working when the volume is less and recipient is more receptive. 

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• US postman hoarded 20,000 letters (news.bbc.co.uk)