Saving the Post Office !

Things looked grim for the suburban post office in recent times.   There was talk of closures as the reason for their existence - handling the delivery of letters - continued to decline.

It was all because of gains by computers and the move to pay bills on-line.  At the same time, delivering bills became electronic, rather than shoved in the letterbox by the mailman, and as the letter volume dropped - the cost of postage stamps rose in proportion.

In other countries, next day delivery of mail was being dropped as a required standard, and there was a trend for post offices to consolidate.  Instead of individual post offices in each suburb, the trend was towards one central post office to service the entire region.

It seems that the death of post offices has been greatly exaggerated.   Instead of death by the rise of e-commerce, they are being saved by e-commerce.

Our embrace of shopping on the internet has switched services from delivering letters - to delivering items purchased on the e-commerce network.    Parcel delivery here on the south coast of NSW has increased 19% - from 158,000 items to a whopping 188,000 in the past financial year.  Surveys reveal that 70% of this can be attributed to e-commerce, worth about $ 30 billion.

So- while retail stores lament the surge of past customers to buying off the internet, the preferred delivery of goods bought seems to be through the post office network - and that may save it from extinction.

In this twenty-first century we are buffeted constantly by the winds of change.   In this instance, they are keeping the men and women on those noisy little motorbikes busy bringing our purchases to our doors.