Changes are Coming to USPS

Starting April 1, USPS is going to be rolling out it's new service standard for first class mail and other less relevant to us segments like media mail and periodicals. This will likely have an effect on our model horse mail, especially packages going out of region.

They say 75% of first class mail will retain the same standard of delivery, however as part of this change they no longer count Saturdays or the day before a holiday as a transit day - so what used to be 5 days could actually now be 6 or 7 before a holiday weekend, but will still count as 5 by the new standards. 11% of deliveries are actually going to be even slower while 14% will be faster - which are going to be the in region mailings.

The postal service has generally been getting slower since they started rolling out their "10 year plan" - I won't get all tin-foil hatty but I will say I think this is on purpose to serve the ultimate goal of privatizing the postal service. We shall see.

For rural customers they are saying inbound packages should be quicker but outgoing may be slower.

But anyway it will be interesting to see if this starts affecting more hobby deliveries. I don't know about you but it seems like I'm always buying things from across the country and never from sellers in my own region! This is of course more expensive and slower so I wonder if we'll start to see more focus on local sales.

We are definitely starting to see more swap meets popping up and I love it! It's fun to get together and it's much nicer to be able to buy and sell in person. I haven't had too much luck selling at these yet, but hopefully as they pick up in popularity they will also start to get more shopper traffic.

Places like facebook marketplace also seem to be getting more listings and who doesn't love a local pickup? Selling online and shipping is certainly nothing like what it used to be when I first started it almost 30 years ago and as the prices go up and shipping times get longer I wonder if we will continue to see a pull away from online sales. Or maybe we will just get to complain more!

So keep an eye on your mail starting next month - I'm going to be curious to see if I see an improvement or a slowdown in my packages - both incoming and outbound.