Outbox vs USPS

Outbox, which bills itself as "recreating the US Postal Service," launched yesterday in San Francisco after being announced last year. Recreating the troubled US Postal Service certainly sounds like a good idea. So how does Outbox work?

For $4.99 a month, you sign up online for an Outbox account (they also have apps), and then an Outbox employee comes to your house, picks up your mail, takes it back to Outbox HQ, opens it, scans it, and gives you access to it via your account. From there, you can "unsubscribe" from junk mail, and request to have your mail "delivered" to your house (even though it was definitely already delivered once, the other day). That's it: a new, "disruptive" service that PandoDaily wrote about at length last year.They wanted to allow consumers to digitize all of their postal mail so that individuals could get rid of junk mail, keep important things organized and never have to go out to their mailbox again. They set out to “redefine a long cherished but broken medium of communication: postal mail.” Customers would opt-in for $5 a month with “Outbox” to have their mail redirected, opened, scanned and available online or through a phone app.  Consumers could then click on a particular scanned letter and ask that it be physically delivered, or that certain types of letters not be opened (e.g., bills etc.).

When Evan and Will got called in to meet with the Postmaster General they were joined by the USPS’s General Counsel and Chief of Digital Strategy. But instead, Evan recounts that US Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe “looked at us” and said “we have a misunderstanding. ‘You disrupt my service and we will never work with you.’” Further, “‘You mentioned making the service better for our customers; but the American citizens aren’t our customers—about 400 junk mailers are our customers.  Your service hurts our ability to serve those customers.

USPS Tracking - Track Your Packages Worldwide Using USPS Tracking

USPS dates back to 1775 when Benjamin Franklin was appointed as Postmaster General and the service provided was immediately recognised as vital to the development of a vast, newly emerging nation. Since its early beginnings the business has been constantly adopting new technologies and methods of transportation to help it live up to the motto, ‘Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.’ The early introduction of free delivery for newspapers ensured that literacy rates were the highest in the World for many years and loss making deliveries to the remotest communities ensured that knowledge was passed quickly and efficiently enabling the country to develop very rapidly. The Pony Express started in 1860, cutting days off delivery times in some areas, but lasted only 18 months before it superseded by the transcontinental telegraph line. Rural Free Delivery in 1896 and then Parcel Post in 1913 enabled the new concept of mail order shopping to take off, used by as much as 25 percent of the population in its early days

Note : USPS Tracking is a postal service for tracking all packages and shipments using U.S.P.S tracking number.

Airmail began in 1918, originally using army planes and personnel, but this was taken over in 1920, and formed the basis for the US air industry today. The number of items being sent grew rapidly from the 1930s to the 60s and a search for more efficient systems lead to the introduction of the Zone Improvement Plan, commonly known as ZIP codes. In 2001 a business alliance was formed with FedEx Express which allowed USPS to improve its services without adding additional costs. The business remains as a standalone branch of the US Government and is self financing; competing for trade in the communication, distribution, delivery, advertising and retail markets.U.S.P.S Post Office holidays are different than comparing with this federal holidays and it is important to know you about USPS Holidays when the mail will come.