Dive Brief:
- The financially beleaguered U.S. Postal Service is looking to expand a test of its grocery delivery program as a way to generate cash.
- USPS has asked regulators to extend its 60-day test with Amazon in San Francisco of early morning deliveries to two years in multiple cities.
- The Postal Service said it also wants to add retailers to the test and may experiment with deliveries at multiple times of the day.
Dive Insight:
The Postal Service wants to offer a service that is limited by the nature of its other work. Under the plan, retailers must drop off orders at the post office between 1:30 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. Postal employees would then deliver the groceries to homes between 3 a.m. and 7 a.m.
That seems like a problem. The Postal Service may have to find a way to deliver at more, and more convenient, times if it wants to compete. Consumers probably prefer that their groceries arrive at a time that is convenient for them, not for the post office.