by Joanna Fletcher

Created on: July 25, 2010   Last Updated: May 31, 2012

Life without your mail carrier and daily delivery is pretty difficult to imagine. But while the US Postal Service's priority mail and shipping services are growning earners, there has been a significant decline in the volume of mail (USPS News Release, May 2010). As the internet daily provides better and better communications products that help us send accurate messages quickly and securely, there really is no need for the US Postal Service in its present form.

The End of Snail Mail

Entrepreneurs are noticing this shift and coming up with business models to ease the transition from traditional location-based paper mail to a fully electronic service. These services scan mail and send a picture to the addressee, who can then decide whether to open and read the mail, in paper form or on their computer screen.

Multiple Models

The technology to make a fully digital mail system has only just arrived, so we can expect to see lots of different business and service models before a leader emerges to dominate the field.The exact system varies between the many companies who are offering the new service, for example, Earth Class Mail makes its money in a different way differs from Zumbox.

New Players Have the Advantage

Smaller companies can react faster to new information and do not have a vast workforce, union contracts, and physical investments to rationalize.It is highly unlikely that the US Postal Service will have the technological resources and agility to be the new leader, unless it is once again legislated by government as a monopoly.

Target marketing

One asset the US Postal Service can leverage is their database of demographic information based on physical addresses. At the moment, companies pay good money for the use of that information, customizing their marketing mailers to appeal to the type of people living in a certain place. Whether it will continue to reflect a useful customer profile in the future is debatable. As people do more of their business online, those customer profiles are being created independent of location, and sold by companies like Google and Facebook.

Going Green

Think of the huge volume of paper that comes through your door that goes straight into the recycling bin. We can take a big step towards sustainable life on earth by simply eliminating traditional mail services. When you add up the huge amounts of paper, ink, gasoline, and labour required to get all that mail to the right person, is the nostalgia and tradition really worth the environmental impact?

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