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Thinking Outside the Box Regarding Revenue

Thinking Outside the Box Regarding Revenue
By Dioenis D. Perez
Long Island, NY, Branch 202 Vice President and Postmaster of Syosset

I recently attended the Managerial Essentials for Field Leadership Group 11 training in Oklahoma. This is new training for Level-21-and-above offices. I highly recommend it. There were a number of presentations I thought had great potential for bringing in new revenue while saving money for the USPS with very little capital investment.

One idea was having the USPS logo on sport teams’ uniforms in order to expand our brand, make it more recognizable and generate, in theory, more revenue. This idea was put on the e-ideas program in the blue pages; log in and vote on it, if you like it. Thank you, Steven Belmont from South Dakota.

Another idea was about how we can downsize our delivery operations and save money by making the USPS a PO box service only. Thank you, Ty Fairbourne in Utah. Also, moving all mail boxes to the curbside and installing CBU units.

It’s time Congress adopts this idea and change the Postal Operations Manual to allow us to do this. There would be an initial outlay of money the USPS would incur, but the return on consolidation of routes would be a huge savings; it needs to be considered. Thank you, Arthur Gonzalez in Tampa, FL.

We saw a presentation illustrating the USPS is losing $44 million a year in Priority Express Mail—an astronomical amount. Not all the fault lies with our competitors who transport it. Certainly, we have some culpability with carriers failing to deliver our premier product on time. Thank you, Peter Kong in Jack-sonville, FL.

riority Express Business is critical, even with our losses, because we are continuing in it. Therefore, why not make this product a 4 p.m. guaranteed service, advertising that, before your business closes, you will receive it the next day? Businesses normally close at 5 p.m. This takes airline delays out of the equation and would allow us to give these pieces a bigger delivery window for success and reduce our losses.

My idea wasn’t presented at this recent training. It was, however, presented in e-ideas several years ago: Lease for one year the advertising space on the back door of every postal vehicle to the highest bidder in each area office and mail plant across the nation. Just imagine your office with Amazon on all its rear doors, an office in Oyster Bay, NY, with CVS on its rear doors or a mail plant with all its tractor trailers in Chicago advertising Facebook on its rear doors. The possibilities for revenue stream ads are endless.

As an example, any business would be able to submit a bid for my office in Syosset, NY, which has 47 vehicles that could advertise their business for a full year for whatever dollar amount the bidder believes it’s worth in order to win the bid. This would generate an enormous amount of revenue over the course of the year from every office nationwide, with very little expense output from the USPS.

Thank you, MEFL Group 11 facilitators and classmates!