E-commerce: USPS Delivers

By Heather Fletcher

The U.S. Postal Service has rules about sending food through the mail. "Mailable perishable matter can be sent at the mailer's own risk," the USPS site states. But bread, eggs, milk and more have been the mail for AmazonFresh grocery buyers in Northern California since August, according to the Wall Street Journal.
"So much for drone delivery," gibes BloombergBusinessweek's Devin Leonard on Sept. 11.

The Sept. 4 WSJ article says the San Franscisco grocery delivery test may foreshadow a wider rollout of USPS deliveries of insulated AmazonFresh packages to customers' doors.

AmazonFresh also delivers to Seattle and Southern California customers and the WSJ piece hints that Manhattan residents may see the option next.

As both Leonard and the WSJ point out, this deepens the USPS relationship with Amazon.

"Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analysts estimate the Postal Service is Amazon's biggest carrier, shipping about 35 percent of its estimated 608 million U.S. packages in 2013," according to the Wall Street Journal. In that mix are Sunday and last-mile delivery.

This move comes as many speculated in early August that Google Shopping Express had plans to take on Amazon when the search giant added same-day delivery of Barnes & Noble books to its e-commerce options in Manhattan, Peninsula, San Francisco, San Jose and West Los Angeles. Northern California's buyers of books, groceries, clothing and more receive overnight delivery.

Will USPS win in door-to-door grocery delivery?

"I just have a bad feeling that we will lose money on this," writes Melody Gannaway in the comments section of PostalNews.com. "The amount of employees that we will utilize on a Sunday for Amazon food and other Amazon stuff seems [it] will cost the USPS more [than] it will make off this."

With AmazonFresh, FreshDirect, Google Shopping Express and other e-commerce grocery delivery services, will neighbors ever ask to borrow a cup of sugar again?

Please respond in the comments section below.