Why USPS Is the Right Choice for Last-Mile Delivery

During last-mile delivery, any error can spell disaster for your business. Customers are eager to receive their packages, and their expectations are high. The trouble is, the actual delivery is out of your company’s hands at this point in the process. To ensure a great experience, the best thing you can do is choose the right partner.

Numerous carriers offer last-mile delivery services, and retailers like Amazon have entered the space as well. But as far as efficiency and ease of use are concerned, OSM Worldwide firmly believes that the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) remains the best option available. That’s why we partner with USPS to handle last-mile delivery, and why we recommend ecommerce enterprises do the same. These are just four of the reasons why.

  1. Wide Delivery Network

If shipments are heading to a dense urban area, adding an additional delivery doesn’t usually have a major impact on a driver’s route. It’s a different story in rural areas, where an extra stop can add miles rather than blocks. 24,000 of the country’s 42,000 ZIP codes represent rural areas, so it’s critical to deliver to these customers efficiently.

Because of the size of its on-the-ground network, USPS excels at delivering to rural addresses. It has access to every business and residential address in the nation — 158 million delivery points in all — and it can deliver packages to those addresses seven days a week. This pre-existing network means that USPS can deliver rural packages more cost-effectively than any other provider, lowering your overall cost of shipping.

  1. Reliable Shipping Volumes

If your business ships hundreds of packages every day, it’s essential that your last-mile partner has the bandwidth to keep up with this kind of volume. Not every carrier does — but this is an area where USPS excels. Their shipping volumes are unmatched across the country and even around the world.

USPS is the single largest postal authority in existence, delivering 47% of the world’s mail. It delivers around 20.2 million mailpieces every day, a growing number of which are parcels from ecommerce businesses. No matter how quickly your business scales, there’s no need to worry: USPS is more than capable of handling your increased volumes.

  1. High Visibility

Customers are always eager to know when their packages will arrive, so providing total transparency about transit status helps improve their experience. By using USPS for the final mile of your deliveries, shippers have a wide range of options to deliver greater visibility.

Along with standard scans at processing and sorting facilities, USPS offers a new Informed Delivery service, which allows customers to preview images of their upcoming deliveries. Through the Informed Delivery dashboard, customers can also schedule delivery alerts, request redelivery and more. This level of convenience and visibility is a big plus for your customers.

  1. Continuous Growth

As ecommerce business continues to grow, USPS’s package delivery services are growing along with it. USPS saw an 11.4% increase in package shipping in 2017, or 589 million additional pieces. The trend of double-digit package delivery growth continued into 2018, and is expected to repeat in 2019 as well. As Postmaster General Megan J. Brennan explained, “No other shipper delivers as many ecommerce packages to the home.”

At OSM Worldwide, we know that USPS is the most efficient and effective way to manage last-mile delivery. By combining our international shipping and domestic shipping expertise with the extensive coverage of USPS, we help companies like yours ship faster, more efficiently and at a lower total cost.

Want to learn more about how our partnership with USPS can save you time and money? Read more about our ecommerce shipping services for businesses, or contact us today to request a quote.