USPS rolled out phase one of Service Standard changes on April 1st, and it rolled out phase two on July 1st. Service standards indicate the expected number of days for delivery after a mailpiece is accepted by USPS.
In April, the Postal Service added one day to Service Standard for Ground Advantage and Single Piece First-Class, among other changes. An excerpt of Tuesday’s USPS press release explained what changed in phase two:
On July 1, USPS will expand:
- The applicability of its service standard bands because of earlier surface transportation dispatch times from regional processing and distribution centers. This will increase the reach of two-, three- and four-day service standards for First-Class Mail and USPS Ground Advantage.
- The geographic scope of “turnaround” volume, which refers to mail and package volume originating and destinating within a processing facility’s service area. Turnaround volume of single-piece First-Class Mail and USPS Ground Advantage will receive a two- or three-day service standard.
What does “increase the reach” of service standards mean? Presumably that’s a good thing for mail that is within a certain geographic area. According to an April 25th Service Standard Changes Fact Sheet: “The new Service Standards allow us to dispatch earlier from Origin postal facilities, reach further, and enhance customer service for mail and shipping products. This will improve service reliability and enable critical revenue growth.”
In March, we reported on the Service Standard changes, including the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC)’s concern that excluding Sundays and holidays as transit days for volume entered into the network on Saturdays or the day before a holiday would in reality extend delivery to up to 6 or more days, characterizing the change as a “degradation in service.”
According to the USPS Changes in Service Standards FAQs (updated May 9, 2025), the Postal Service explained how the change would affect the general public – for example, a person sending a birthday card or a letter to a friend. The impact would depend on the location of the sender and the recipient. “Customers who tender mail to USPS on Saturday or the day before a holiday should account for the day(s) now excluded from service measurement while estimating the expected delivery date for the tendered mail,” it said.
Just a few years ago, you could put a first-class stamp on a birthday card and expect it to arrive in 1-3 days, no matter how far away the recipient lived. Now it could take 6 days – and it costs you more.
Great now they can…
Stop wasting millions on advertising on TV and magazine ads.
Have accountability. The member of postal management; for instance, that created a program to buy the homes of managers forced to move due to a job change should be fired, loose their retirement funds and be banned from ever holding a federal job for life.
Those responsible for agreeing to eBay 2010 agreement between eBay, USPS and China Post are guilty of treason and should be fired, loose all pensions, retirement benefits and be banned from all federal jobs. Consider that getting off easy.
Postal employees that steal and destroy mail and so are actually fired and loose all benefits.
Ban private insurance on any labels providers that are granted postal discounts (i.e., Ebay, PirateShip and others). This undermines postal profits on insurance and causes USPS to raise rates. So these label providers can decide if they want to stay in business or not or drop the private insurance. Alternatively this requires a permit and USPS is paid a fee for all private insurance allowed on packages.
USPS idea of making extra money is to purchase a bunch of products with postal art on them such as puzzle, shirts and so and try to sell them in post offices, only to loose millions. Instead they need to license the artwork to third party companies such as Zazzle whereas USPS just sets back and collects the royalty checks.
Bring back custom stamps on Zazzle and other sites.
Invoke standard accounting practices. The local post office that you are taking your packages to does not get credit from the revenue for those packages. That means they are not matching revenue to expenses – expenses are overstated. This leads to closures and shortening of hours. The only reason I am selling on eBay in the first place is because of the local post office.
@Consign
“Ban private insurance on any labels providers that are granted postal discounts (i.e., Ebay, PirateShip and others). This undermines postal profits on insurance and causes USPS to raise rates.”
This is an utterly ridiculous comment. Do you know how many USPS damages I’ve had and they’ve refused to pay the claim… even when I’ve purchased additional insurance coverage through USPS? THEY DO NOT PAY OUT. Lost parcels are another story, but they just deny, deny, deny, any claims for damages. Even when you provide them with photo evidence of your bubble-wrapped item surrounded by peanuts that was taken before you seal the top of the box closed.
Congress needs to allow USPS to invest its nearly $300 Billion in retirement funds into stocks and bonds. Currently, the law allows USPS to only buy govt bonds. If USPS was able to buy a mix of stocks and bonds like most state pension funds do USPS would be in the black by making annual an average of say $15 to $18 billion based on a 5 to 6% gain. USPS has missed out on investment gains of over $1trillion over the last 50 years because of these law by Congress.