From pandemic to postal insecurity, a small business owner responds to the moment

From pandemic to postal insecurity, a small business owner responds to the moment

I'm a small online retailer. Here's how I'm adapting my business to accommodate US Postage slowdowns.

I am a small online retailer. I depend on the United States Postal Service (USPS) to ship my orders. I sell handmade salves, handmade by me. I make lip balms, skin repair, and sore muscle salves at a tiny Etsy shop online.

I've had my shop for over 7 years now. My little online business has grown slowly over that time.

I sell self-care products geared towards people who do intense CrossFit workouts. My most frequent customers are the people who love these crazy exercise folks, buying gifts for crossfitters all across the country.

Other customers buy my products because they need them. They have sore muscles or torn hands, and no time to wait for mail delays either.

I was receive several wholesale orders per month from both domestic and foreign buyers.  But for one exception (where I ship my product on my buyer's UPS account), my sole shipper for the entire time I've been in business has been the USPS.

I've checked around. The USPS has the best prices out there, by a lot. There's no way I could be even close to competitive if I had to pay UPS or Fedex rates on a regular basis.

Maybe if you're a big company that's shipping on a really large scale, you can negotiate for better shipping rates from these large private companies. This savings opportunity is just not available for a little fish like me.

Last week, a lady placed an order at my online shop. She immediately messaged me, asking if there is a chance she can get the order before August 22nd. She had placed her order on the 13th.

Normally I would have said, "Of course, your order will be there on time with First Class Mail. Don't worry about it."

 In past times, I would have had absolutely zero doubt.

Up to this point, (*knocks wood*) all of my packages have been arriving and my customers have been happily leaving Five Star reviews at my shop, many commenting on how impressively quickly they received their item.

But lately, I've been hearing about mail delivery delays.

I'm reading about sorting machines being removed from facilities. Recently, under the leadership of (ups stockholder * Link) Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, the USPS has sustained a massive layoff of longtime postal service executives, and some mailboxes being removed from the streets of US cities.

Until August 14, just a few days ago as I write this, nationwide efforts to sabotage the timely delivery of the mail were being enacted at every level.

This time instead of assuring my customer not to worry, I told her I would put her order into the mail right away, and that there should be plenty of time. In the end, she upgraded her shipping from First Class to Priority, just so she could have more peace of mind.

This interaction caused me to change my shop's shipping policy. Up to this point, my Etsy shop has said that orders would be sent in 1-3 business days. 

Today I switched it to say, "Ships in 1-2 business days."

In truth, I'm sending my orders out as soon as they come in. I feel I have no choice.

It's not much, but shipping my orders out as fast as I receive them seems like the least I can do to make sure that my customers get their gifts, and self-care treats, in a timely fashion.

I depend on the USPS. My customers depend on the USPS. The Post Office is in the Constitution. It's been a reliable way to send and receive letters in this country since the late 1700s. Our forefathers, and foremothers, relied on the USPS for nearly all of their long-distance communications, for centuries.

Nowadays, even though we have all this other fantastic technology that allows us to talk, send messages, and even speak to people through our computer screens, Jetson's style, we still need to be able to send physical items to people across distances.

We live in a physical world, inside our physical bodies. Especially now, in the midst of a pandemic, our dependency on the USPS for letter mail and package delivery has become even more apparent.

Let's face it, until our consciousnesses are loaded into a big computer mainframe, our need for physical papers, objects, items, and goods is not going to end.

The structure of the USPS connects everyone within the US, including Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, and several other faraway places I probably forgot. Another great thing about the USPS is that you don't need to be rich to use it. Everyone, no matter where they are, can send and receive mail for the same price.

Instead of decrying the USPS for being a 'failing business,' we should be heralding it as being a minor miracle of human organizational, logistical, and infrastructure triumph!

We have a right to a functioning postal service. The need for this common good is so apparent right now, at the height of a pandemic. It boggles my mind that something so absolutely essential to all of us has been put in such jeopardy.

Congress has started to act. After leaving last week on a one month planned recess, Representatives are back in Washington DC this week and have scheduled USPS oversight hearings for Friday. Postmaster General DeJoy, is scheduled to testify in person on Friday morning, August 21.

Congress should reverse the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA),which forced the prepayment of 75 years of postal worker pensions, and take whatever other steps possible to expand the role of the postal service so that this critical nationwide institution will be preserved for all future generations.

If you rely on the USPS, like I do, here are some things you can do to help support and advocate for the USPS. The public outcry so far has helped! 

On Aug 19 DeJoy released a statement saying he would halt changes in mail operations until after the November election in order to avoid the perception that he was trying to sabotage the election. 

It would be better if his new plans had been scrapped altogether, instead again we're given a couple more months of reprieve, while our precious national postal service remains in jeopardy. That's just not good enough. We need to protect the USPS, it's services, and cost-efficiency now, and into the future.

Be nice to your mail carrier when you see them. Buy an extra book of stamps this week, write someone a letter, or a Thank You card. Here's an idea: Write your senators and congressperson and tell them that you want them to do something to help save the US Postal Service.