USPS Responds to "Death of the SCF"

Someone posted some questions about our "Death of the SCF -- Exclusive Analysis" item on the Postal Customer Council's blog. An anonymous "Blog Administrator1" from the U.S. Postal Service responded:

We don’t have data that supports a big decline in mail being deposited at ADCs vs.SCFs. However, as a result of the the current economic situation, and in particular the increased cost of fuel, some publishers may decide to change their current mail drop locations in order to shorten their travel distances. The United States Postal Service has published service standards that mailers may use in order to make informed decisions about where to drop mail based on the expected delivery timeframe.

There is no maybe; some publishers have definitely scaled back their dropship locations -- and started doing it before fuel prices began skyrocketing

A friend passed along this response to "Death of the SCF" from someone he describes as "an executive of a major publishing company who is very knowledgeable about postal issues":

I think that the author’s representation of the facts is correct but he’s not looking at the long term answer. Yes, they did water down the drop ship incentive but they also realize that they are now giving mailers the incentive to reduce entry points. I’m assuming that they will slowly turn up the burners on the bundle and container rates and gradually get us back to the point where the incentives are better.

Dead Tree Edition's view is that, while the Postal Service may indeed increase incentives to drop ship, it will continue to reduce gradually the number of facilities that accept dropshipped mail.